


Fully Known

by ceterisparibus



Series: Ella [6]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: (spoiler alert), Avocados at Law, Catholicism, Character Death, Drugs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Hurt/Comfort, Karen Page perseveres, Labradoodle!, Legal Drama, Martial Arts, Pregnancy, Therapy, but it's a bad guy don't worry, but still don't use it unless the criminals attack you first, don't use the training against real people unless they're criminals, i looked it up, like lots of martial arts training, vigilantism is illegal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-10-15 22:23:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 29
Words: 130,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17537438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceterisparibus/pseuds/ceterisparibus
Summary: Someone is using a fear-inducing hallucinogenic drug against the criminals of Hell's Kitchen, and Matt is doing his best to deal with various Emotions.I've stopped trying to anticipate ending the Ella series, so...yeah. Special shoutout to all the incredible readers who've suggested most of these plot points! I can't wait to see what y'all think. <3





	1. You Tell Me

Matt

He woke to find Ella no longer squished beside him but spread diagonally across him, her head on his chest and her bushy hair all but in his mouth. He felt warm sunlight and realized belatedly that his talking alarm clock was at home, so he had no idea how late he’d slept. From the sounds and smells in the kitchen, it seemed clear that Maeva had been up for some time making French toast, as requested.

His neck hurt and he felt uncomfortably exposed in the morning light without his mask and he really should go make sure Frank was okay, but Ella was still asleep and until she woke up, he didn’t particularly want to move for anything short of an apocalypse.

Quiet footsteps entered the room. “Good morning,” Maeva said.

“I’m sorry,” he answered automatically.

“What for?” Moving across the room, she twitched open the blinds, allowing more sunlight to stream in, causing Ella to stir but not awaken.

“Didn’t mean to stay so late.” He tried to figure out how to extricate himself from under Ella without disturbing her. Couldn’t figure it out. Didn’t try terribly hard anyway, since he wasn’t actually eager to leave the couch. “What time is it?”

“Just after nine.”

He hadn’t slept in that late since college, unless induced by a concussion or something. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“It’s all right. The French toast is keeping warm in the oven.”

“I mean…” He wriggled half-heartedly towards an upright position, but gave up when Ella sighed and curled her fingers into his shirt. “Doesn’t she have school?”

“Well,” Maeva said innocently, “she’s still asleep after nine in the morning, so I can only assume she’s sick. I already called the school.”

He closed his eyes. Great. “You could’ve woken me up. I don't want to disrupt anything.”

“It’s no disruption.” She was already walking out of the room. “Micah left for work already, but I don’t have to be anywhere until noon, so take as much time as you want.”

He shouldn’t stay here, shouldn’t impose. Should go check on Frank, get started on the day. But now that his eyes were closed once more, it seemed more effort than it was worth to open them again.

He didn’t leave their home until noon, at which point he was given one of Micah’s jackets to wear over his black shirt and loaded down with enough leftover French toast to last a week.

 

Apparently, getting over six hours of sleep did wonders for his disposition come nightfall. Bounding from rooftop to rooftop, Matt was having more fun than he could remember having in ages. Besides, it was a weeknight and things were fairly calm. He got into a few fights, but most of his enemies dropped whatever they were doing and just took off running when they realized he’d found them. Normally, a lack of combat only left Matt feeling even more restless. Tonight, he mostly just found it amusing.

However, it also left him with more time to think than he was used to.  After he put himself between a tourist and an angry mugger with a bat, he won the fight but walked away thinking about how he missed his suit. He was better at dealing with knives now, true. But the suit also offered more protection against bruising. A helmet, at least, would be nice. He’d been trying to look into Melvin’s situation and had so far failed to even track him down. Matt assumed this meant that some of the agents who’d captured him had been working for Fisk at the time, had been able to make Melvin disappear. Betsy Beatty was still alive and still working as a parole officer, which led Matt to believe that Melvin was also still breathing somewhere, just buried alive in a bureaucratic maze.

Matt stubbornly tried to push away the stab of guilt that always accompanied thoughts of Melvin. By making the fake Daredevil suit, Melvin had aided in each and every attack Dex ever made while wearing the suit.

If not for Melvin, Father Lantom might still be alive.

Of course, Father Lantom might also still be alive if Matt had stayed at the church instead of fleeing as soon as he’d learned the truth about Maggie. Then he would’ve been there when Karen found him, he would’ve known Fisk was hunting her, and he would’ve stayed to protect her. He would’ve heard Dex coming. He could’ve warned everyone.

Matt paused, balancing on the edge of an abandoned fire escape. See, that was the problem. The smallest little thought— _a helmet would be nice_ —could trigger a downward spiral of regret. Foggy called it Catholic guilt and Karen just called it annoying. His new therapist called it personalization.

Actually, Dr. Richland didn’t call it that explicitly. What she _had_ done was given him a list of “cognitive distortions” with instructions to identify examples of them and report back at the next session. It felt oddly like being given homework, but he reminded himself that he was doing this to help Ella, not to mention to make Foggy feel better. Besides, he was now realizing how often their clients slipped into cognitive distortions under the stress of legal problems. If he understood the distortions better, he could better help the clients.

That was his rationalization, at least.

So he made a mental note that he’d just slipped into personalization, which apparently involved overestimating his own fault in any given scenario. Dr. Richland hadn’t come out and _said_ that personalization was a particular problem for him, but Matt seemed to come up with more examples of personalization than most of the others. Privately, he sort of thought that if he had to have one distortion or another (and didn’t everyone?) he’d rather err towards personalization than the opposite. At least he was taking responsibility for things rather than blaming everyone else for anything going wrong. But he didn’t think Dr. Richland would be impressed with his reasoning.

He also thought he’d engaged in enough introspection for the day, so he let his ears take over. There was a situation developing about three blocks away, outside of a bar, the kind of bar the cops tended to avoid. Police picked their battles in Hell’s Kitchen and this particular bar was clearly on some kind of list.

Matt cocked his head, curious. The situation was developing, sure, but so far it was hovering right at the edge of bloodshed. There were raised voices, and it sounded like one guy had a switchblade. But something was keeping the participants in check.

Matt took a path across rooftops until he was crouched just overhead. Interesting. The two men growling at each other were clearly furious, but they were also holding back—and not just because each was supported by four other men. Matt listened to their stances, took in their posture, and wondered if the strange, mutual respect was a recent development or based on their reputations. He didn’t personally recognize either, but he made a mental note to investigate further.

“Just give us the space and we’ll leave you alone,” one of the men insisted.

“Not my fault your boys can’t tell the difference between the good stuff and hell,” the other spat. “How many of them are still crying for their—”

The first interrupted him off with a torrent of curses.

“Geeze,” a young-sounding voice whispered from some distance behind him. “Karen, you think he kisses his mom with that mouth?” A pause. “Karen, come back. I miss you.”

Matt immediately edged away from the rooftop and slunk into the cooler temperature of a shadow. The new voice had come from up high at an improbable angle, and it was slightly muffled but drawing closer. Moments later, it was close enough for Matt to hear the accompanying heartbeat: too loud and too fast to be normal. And there was something else: a strange smell. Synthetic, almost tangy.

“Holy noodles, Karen, that’s Daredevil! Right? You can run facial recognition, right?” A sigh. “I miss you, Karen. But I miss you for you, not just your facial recognition capabilities.”

Of the two men below, the swearing one had retreated with his followers and the other group was returning to the bar to soothe their agitation, so Matt focused on the new voice and the loud heartbeat while he stayed still in the shadows. He’d clearly been seen, but it seemed better not to advertise that he knew he wasn’t hidden.

“Well, not facial recognition, I guess, since there’s the mask and everything.” There was a _thwipp_ sound, and the tangy smell grew stronger, and the strong pulse glided closer, apparently attaching to the wall of a closer building. “Which is a pretty good indicator even without facial recognition. Still, wasn’t there, like, a Double-D imposter or something?” Another pause, and when the voice spoke again, it sounded horrified. “What if that happened to me? What if there were, like, a thousand Spidermans running around?”

Wait, _what_. Matt stood up because that kid couldn’t be older than sixteen. Seventeen at the absolute most, but Matt was pretty sure he was sixteen. Which was way too young to be running around Hell’s Kitchen at night, convinced he was Spiderman.

Trying to appear as nonthreatening as possible, Matt emerged from the shadows. Assuming they were shadows. “Hey,” he said quietly.

The heartrate skyrocketed. “You can hear me?”

“Why don’t you come down?” Matt asked, wishing Foggy were here. Or Maggie. Or anyone else, really. “It’s not safe up there.” Or anywhere in this part of Hell’s Kitchen.

The wannabe-Spiderman did not climb down. “I’m not a bad guy, I swear. But you already know that, right? We’re, like, on the same team. I mean, I’m basically an Avenger! Actually, I did fight Captain America once—but that doesn’t make me a bad guy, I gave him his shield back and everything!”

Matt blinked. “Please just come down before you get hurt.”

“Are you gonna punch me? Or do one of those flippy kick things?

Somewhere, there had to be a responsible parental figure who was looking for him. “Does anyone know you’re up here?”

“The NSA, probably. And my personal FBI agent. Actually, no, he probably got cut off when Mr. Stark deactivated my suit. Hey, do you know Mr. Stark?”

From the smell of it, the kid had been out here all night, and found his way into at least one dumpster. Matt felt a stab of concern. The kid needed professional help and Matt was woefully underequipped. “Listen, kid, I need you to—” He stopped, distracted by a new scent. He had no idea what it was, but it smelled _amazing_. Like honey and jasmine and something heavier all mixed together.

The kid was suddenly…vibrating? Kind of? “Mr. Daredevil, sir, we should probably get out of here.”

Disregarding him, Matt took a step in the scent’s direction, head tilted.

“Um, no, let’s please _not_ go towards the scary smell—”

Matt turned around. Priorities. “Do you have a home? Can you get back safely on your own?” No, wait, there was no way Matt could justify letting this insane kid who thought he was Spiderman wander the streets of Hell’s Kitchen alone, even if he could apparently cling to the side of buildings.

But then a scream echoed in the direction of the scent.

“ _See_ ,” the kid hissed. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about!”

He could knock the kid out, call the police, check out the fight (and the scent), and get back to make sure the police actually picked the kid up. Satisfied with this new plan, Matt started edging backwards to move behind the kid, preferring a chokehold to a strike.

It was a good plan, right up until the kid jumped about six feet into the air and backwards. “What the cuss, dude?”

Matt held still, raising his empty hands in a deceptive show of harmlessness. “Listen, I—”

“You just tried to knock me out!”

Impressed despite himself, Matt reached covertly for one of his clubs in his leg holster. “Actually, I—”

Something thick and sticky slapped into his leg. He took a shocked step backwards.

“I take back everything I ever said about us being on the same side,” the kid announced. “Please don’t follow the scary scent, Mr. Devil. I’m really serious.” With that, he…oh, he just flipped off the side of the building, then somehow swung himself up onto an apartment, then swung again onto another building.

All right. It seemed that Matt might have misinterpreted some things.

He took two steps towards the edge of his own roof before realizing that there was no possible way for him to catch up to Spiderman—who was, alarmingly, a _child_. There was another scream, louder and longer, in the direction of the strange new scent, so Matt took off in the opposite direction. He could deal with Spiderman after he solved the immediate problem.

Whatever it was.

He dropped down onto a street just outside the alley where the scent was strongest. But he was also struck by the other signals, all buzzing together to create a picture of sheer panic. The spice of adrenaline, spiking heartrates, skyrocketing blood pressure, tense muscles. The stench of sweat. Matt was familiar enough with the signs of fear, but this?

This was…a lot.

Matt’s own heart started racing in synchronization. He ignored it, but he slowed down at the mouth of the alleyway, buying himself time to figure out what was going on. There was scuffling, and harsh breathing, and a low moan. Incoherent whispers.

Then he heard a yelp and a curse and knew he’d been noticed. Footsteps scrambled away, but one person remained, left behind to cower on the dirty ground beside a fresh pool of vomit. This kid couldn’t have been older than Spiderman. They were both…what, in high school?

Matt consciously kept his hands from clenching into fists at his sides as he approached slowly. “Hey.” He kept his voice low, even. “It’s okay.”

“Devil,” the kid gasped out, trembling.

Matt stood still. “I won’t come any closer. You’re okay.” Except that the sweet smell was mingling with the scent of fear-soaked sweat and drops of blood and he wondered if the crazy Spiderman kid hadn’t been so crazy after all to be freaked out by…whatever was happening here. “Stay there,” Matt ordered, pulling his phone from a zippered pocket to call for help.

The kid muttered in response, but it sounded like he was talking to someone else. Something else.

Matt punched in the numbers anyway, explained that they needed an ambulance, gave his best estimation of an address. Then began the waiting game. The kid kept flinching at nothing, trying to push himself into the wall, scraping himself raw on the brick. Suddenly, he opened his mouth and released another scream before Matt punched him in the gut, effectively cutting off the sound.

“Sorry,” Matt said, but the last thing they needed was for the assailants to return, or for someone else to find them.

Groaning, the kid curled into a ball, pressing his hands to his ears, then his eyes, then back to the ears, smearing blood all over his face. Matt focused on listening to his heartbeat, which was still dangerously fast. The last time he’d been around such terror, it had belonged to Kyle Conway—who’d known he was dying.

Finally, sirens blared, coming towards them. A few moments later, the kid slammed backwards into the wall, hands over his ears, raising his voice in another scream. Matt knocked the wind out of him a second time, but what was wrong with him? Either he was hallucinating, or…he couldn’t hear the siren already, could he?

But the kid shrieked again as the ambulance drew closer, and they were about to attract the worst kind of attention if he didn’t shut up. Matt knelt in front of him. “Hey. Hey. Focus on me.”

To his shock, the kid lunged forward, burying his face in Matt’s shoulder, shuddering so hard that both of them were shaking. “Make it stop, make it stop!” His skin was fever-hot to the touch, blazing through Matt’s shirt. “I can’t, I can’t, stop it, don’t leave me alone, please, please, _please_ —”

The smell of fear was everywhere, overpowering, and beneath it the heady scent hung over both of them like a blanket. But it was concentrated around the kid’s arm, and when Matt brushed his gloved hand over it, he caught the tip of a needle still buried in skin, its contents already swimming through the kid’s bloodstream.

Matt should’ve gotten here faster.

The sirens shrieked closer and the last thing Matt wanted to do was leave the kid alone, but if he waited a second longer, he’d be caught. He pulled away, tried to shut out the kid’s groan of abject despair, and leapt onto the nearest fire escape and out of sight. But he could still hear the kid shrinking away from the paramedics as if from phantoms, and he could still hear one of the paramedics report nervously that they’d found another one.

 

Karen

Mornings came too soon on the nights she spent at Matt’s place. After the first few nights, she’d at least learned to fall asleep before he actually came back from patrolling…but she still stayed awake far later than she should, double-checking that the volume on her phone was all the way up and telling herself that he was okay.

But even if it was always harder to drag herself out of bed the next morning, it was worth it.

This morning, however, she snapped awake with a jolt of energy. It took her a moment to figure out why: Matt was twitching beside her, hushed noises of pain escaping into the room.

She rolled over to face him and found him already facing her, eyes shut too tight. A damp trail ran down one cheek and blood seeped from under a bandage on his shoulder. Both the bandage and the injury were new—he must’ve collected them last night, and chosen to patch himself up rather than wake her up, but now his restlessness had reopened the wound.

He’d had a nightmare once before while she slept over, and she’d learned her lesson: any attempt at waking him was almost guaranteed to give her a black eye, and his subsequent horror would completely overwhelm her best attempts at soothing him.

For one moment, she closed her eyes and listened to his sharp breaths. But wallowing in her own helplessness wouldn’t help either of them, so she slowly slipped out of from under the covers. Frank was asleep over their feet—she still wasn’t allowed on the bed, technically, but although she consistently started the night in her own bed on the floor, she always wound up draped across their feet by morning. Karen scratched the dog’s ears and left the bedroom, leaving the door open.

Her pancakes weren’t as good as Foggy’s, but she was apparently an expert at making bacon, which had been his favorite breakfast food when he was a kid. Matt explained once, smiling happily, how his dad had felt it his mission to ensure that Matt knew exactly how to select the choicest pieces of bacon from the packages at the store. Not that they’d often had money to spare on bacon, which made it even more of a treat.

For now, however, Karen was predominately interested in the smell of it, hoping it would wake him more peacefully. So she put a pan on the oven and mixed together batter for blueberry muffins while she was at it, since that was one of _her_ favorite breakfast foods. Frank followed her into the kitchen as if to oversee the process.

When the bacon was ready and the muffins were baking, and the whole apartment was full of their mingling aromas, she padded on bare feet back to the bedroom doorway. Leaning against the frame, she peered inside to find him awake. He was sitting on his side of the bed with his elbows on his knees, hands wringing together like he was trying to wash them.

“Sorry I woke you,” he said quietly, without looking up.

“You didn’t.” But he should have. He should’ve woken her up as soon as he’d gotten home, if whatever he’d seen out there was this bad.

One corner of his mouth barely lifted. “You’re making bacon. You’re worried about me?”

“Can’t I make bacon just because I love you?”

He rubbed at his eyes. “I guess.” His jaw clenched for a moment. “I’m sorry I didn’t…I mean, I didn’t really expect this. I wouldn’t have let you stay over if I’d…”

Her eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

He went back to clasping his hands together. “I can normally anticipate when, uh…when a night might be bad. So you don’t have to deal with it.”

Those times when he’d turned down her offers to spend the night together suddenly made a lot more sense. Her chest tightened, but her feet carried her to sit beside him. “Don’t,” she said softly.

He pressed his lips together.

“I don’t mind. I really don’t. As long as…” She hesitated. “Is it harder for you, if I’m here?”

His eyebrows raised as if to say, _obviously_.

“I mean,” she clarified, “is it harder for _you_ , or harder because you think it’s hard for me?”

Now his lips formed a brief, joyless smile. “The latter.”

She rested her head against his bare shoulder, which remained stiff for only a second before relaxing under her touch. “You beautiful, wonderful idiot.” His hands were still restless, so she reached out and slipped hers between his agitated fingers.

He calmed slightly. “Thank you, Karen.”

“What happened last night?”

“I don’t know.” He fiddled absently with her hand. “There was this…something. Like some kind of new drug, I think. This kid got dosed and I…I was too late.”

She tensed. “Is he okay?”

“I don’t know. I called an ambulance, so I had to leave.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I just…he was so scared. Like nothing I’ve come across.”

“If you called the ambulance, you helped.” But the look on his face told her he didn’t find much comfort in that. She lowered her voice, trying for the perfect balance between compassionate and casual. “Is that what caused the nightmare, do you think?”

He offered a thin, appreciative smile. “Yeah.”

“Do you think talking about it would help?”

He didn’t answer.

“Matt?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He turned his face into her hair, breathing in slowly. “Might just make it worse.”

“Why?”

Again, silence.

She sighed. “Okay. You don’t have to talk about it. But if you think a night’s going to be bad, let me be there.” Waking up from a nightmare only to find yourself in an empty room was one of the loneliest things she knew.

“Why?” His voice sharpened. “So I can hit you when you try to wake me up?”

“No, so I can do this when you wake up on your own.” Touching her fingers under his chin, she angled his face towards her, wiped the tearstains away, and kissed him.

His eyes fluttered closed, but then he pulled back. “I don’t…I’d rather not…” He stopped.

“What?”

“Forget it. It’s stupid.”

The oven chimed in the kitchen. Maybe he’d more talkative over muffins. She pulled him to his feet and, once he’d zipped himself up into a thick hoodie, tugged him out of the bedroom. He fell into position beside her in the kitchen, taking responsibility for expertly slicing grapefruit while she set the table and piled their plates with muffins.

Exasperation flickered over his face as he took in the table. “There’s no room for the grapefruit.”

“Oops,” she said innocently, not much of a fan.

Rolling his eyes, he set the grapefruit on the counter behind them. There was just enough room at the table for the smaller plate of bacon.

They sat across from each other and she was savoring the warmth of a blueberry bursting on her tongue. But his mouth remained closed as well as his eyes; he didn’t join her in eating until about a minute later and she realized he’d been praying. He rarely prayed before meals—explaining once that he didn’t often think of it anymore, despite how the nuns had tried to drill it into him, and that when he did, it felt too ritualistic.

Last night must’ve been really bad.

“Just for future reference,” she said casually, “is this a good approach?”

“Approach?”

“Breakfast after bad nights.” Nightmares usually left her stomach too uneasy for the thought of food to be appealing, but he didn’t seem to have that problem.

“Well, I’m not _complaining_.” He kind of smirked, taking another bite of muffin and covertly feeding Frank a piece of bacon.

She allowed herself a moment to feel satisfied before pushing a bit more. “So, you agree that it’s not the worst thing in the world for me to stay over, even if you know it’s going to be a bad night?” Which…she was immensely curious about that too, how he could _tell_. Was that something Stick taught him? How accurate were his predictions? Could he teach her to anticipate nightmares, too? But it seemed more urgent to establish that he didn’t need to protect her from the aftermath.

Swallowing his mouthful, he tipped his head back with a sigh. “It’s not just, uh…it’s not just that I don’t want you to have to deal with it.”

She purposefully started nibbling on a piece of bacon, trusting him to keep talking now that he’d started.

“I mean, yeah. Part of it’s for your sake, and I know you hate that, so I’m sorry. But also…” He seemed to brace himself. “It’d be one thing if I just woke up and you were still asleep and I could, you know, listen to you or something.”

To her heartbeat, her breathing, all the little sounds that reassured him that she was there, she was okay.

He lowered his head and averted his gaze but didn’t actually tilt his face away, which she took to mean that whatever he was about to say was probably more honest than not. “But I don’t wake up so easily, especially not from…that. Which means you’re awake while I’m still…you know. And no one’s really watched me sleep since Foggy.” He paused and half-grinned. “That came out wrong.”

“I get it,” she said gently. “Good news, though. I’ve never heard you talk in your sleep, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Whatever I might _say_ is kind of the least of my concerns,” he admitted.

He didn’t want her to hear the whimpers—there was no other word for it—or see the tears while he was still asleep, unable to shield himself. Why, because he thought she’d respect him less? Because he thought his pain might hurt her? Well, the first thing was impossible, and the last thing might be true but it was also worth it. “I wish I could convince you,” she said.

“Of?”

She shrugged, not sure how to explain it herself. “Just…of the fact that I’m not going anywhere. No matter what. Unless you want me to,” she added quickly.

“I don’t,” he said just as quickly.

“Good.”

“Can we…can we talk about something else?”

She loved that, at some point, he’d stopped awkwardly changing the subject whenever he wanted a conversation to end. It wasn’t some great show of weakness, but asking aloud to let something go struck her as far more vulnerable than forcing a new topic. So whenever possible, she agreed. “Yeah. What do you want to talk about?”

He fed Frank another piece of bacon. “Did you know Spiderman is a teenager?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates will definitely be slower this time around, but I'll try to post new chapters at least once a week! I apologize in advance for upcoming cliffhangers.


	2. It's So Like Me

Dex

Prison was boring and that was a terrifying realization.

“I thought you were taking classes,” Sister Maggie pointed out, her voice echoing slightly off the severe white walls. “Aren’t those engaging?”

“Not _enough_.” His brain was just one part of him, and it wasn’t even fully stimulated anyway. If he had to read one more mindless comment about how one person liked another person’s point, he was going to throw up.

“What do you find engaging here?”

Stealing things when no one was looking. Throwing things when no one was looking. Outsmarting the system, basically. Which was hard. Somehow, they knew who he was. At least, he thought they did. They knew the story about how the FBI had turned against him, and of course they believed all of it. They also knew he’d worked with Fisk. No one seemed to know or care about the fact that Fisk had completely betrayed him.

They also knew he’d gotten out, and it seemed like they blamed him for Madam Gao’s ingenuity. He tried not to be angry with her memory. She hadn’t meant for that to happen, right?

“Dex?” Sister Maggie prodded.

Oh, she’d asked him a question. “Nothing. Nothing’s engaging. It’s all so…” He rubbed at his eyes; a massive headache was building behind them. “It’s so pointless in here, and I just…” He felt his tension rising and stopped, forcing himself to remember the breathing exercises she’d shown him.

She looked thoughtfully at him. “What are you thinking about right now?”

He was thinking about how Fisk was locked up in a prison too, and he was hoping Fisk hated it as much as he did. He was thinking about how Vanessa _wasn’t_ locked up, how she got to walk around with the whole world at her fingertips. He was thinking about how he didn’t know what they’d done with Julie’s body. Hadn’t been able to find her even after Gao had facilitated his release. He was thinking about how satisfying it had been to lodge a plastic spork into another prisoner’s eye and watch someone else be blamed for it.

“Nothing,” he said.

Her forehead creased. “Dex, I can’t help you if you’re not honest with me.”

“When are you coming back?”

“Next week.”

He nodded. So far, she’d met with him every single week without fail. At some point, he hoped he’d actually believe that she wanted to help him. But all he really knew was that she’d run away from him before, as soon as she’d had the chance. What was to stop her from doing it again if he said something she didn’t like?

She wouldn’t even have to run away. He was locked up; she wasn’t. All she had to do was decide not to come back and that would be it; he’d never see her again.

He tried to smile. “I’ll tell you next week.”

 

Peter

“All I’m saying is _if_ Captain America is worthy to wield Mjolnir—”

“You can’t just assume that,” Peter pointed out, slightly offended on Thor’s behalf. Captain America was a great guy, obviously, and the whole airport terminal battle thing was probably a fluke, but still. Not every good guy was automatically worthy.

Ned leaned forward causing the crappy classroom chair to squeak under his weight. “But if he is, there’s no way Stark would be able to beat him, not with Black Panther _and_ Black Widow—”

“Black Widow wouldn’t be on Mr. Stark’s side,” Peter interjected. “She switched.”

“Yeah, but I thought she—” Ned broke off abruptly as the implications sank in. His eyes flew wide. “ _You met the Black Widow?_ ”

Peter kicked him hard in the shins just as the door opened with a groan that suggested it was capable of feeling pain. A giant whiteboard mounted on a wheeled base rolled into the room, followed by Michelle who was pushing it.

She stopped with a huff, blowing her hair out of her face. “Where’s the rest of the team?”

Ned shrugged. “Getting snacks?”

“But hunger would make our minds sharper.” She took in their expressions. “Kidding.” Then she flipped the whiteboard over to reveal a hand-drawn calendar. “We’ll start with you two, then. Mark down all the time slots you’re available to practice.”

Peter squinted at the board, where she’d split each day into forty-eight separate sections. “You expect us to schedule ourselves by half-hour increments?”

She arched an eyebrow and held his gaze. “I expect us to win, Peter.”

That was more than enough for him. Grabbing a bright blue marker, he started checking off times, hyper aware of Michelle watching him. He thought she seemed approving, but it was hard to tell because as soon as he was done she tossed another marker at Ned and flounced towards the door, announcing that she needed to find the rest of the team and drag them back.

“You should tell her who you are,” Ned whispered.

Peter jumped three feet into the air. He really needed to work on calibrating the spidey sense to recognize relationship advice ambushes as a genuine threat. “For the last time, please stop.”

“She’d be so into it!”

“Man, she’s not half as into Spiderman as you are,” Peter pointed out, then realized that potentially sounded kind of mean. “I mean, she seems pretty used to the whole superhero thing, that’s all.”

“But you wanna date her.”

“ _What_.”

“You wanna buy her a nice dinner and give her flowers and make her smile at your stupid jokes and—”

Peter cringed at the thought of asking Michelle to do any of that with him. “I know what a date is. But if she won’t go out with me as _me_ , there’s no reason she’d suddenly go out with me just because I’m Spiderman.”

“You don’t think she’d date you as you?” Ned asked incredulously.

Peter stared blankly at him because Ned was supposed to be _smart_.

Ned shrugged smugly. “I think if Spiderman asked her out, she’d just smirk and tell him she’d think about it. I think if _Peter Parker_ asked her out—”

Peter stomped on Ned’s foot just as the door opened and Michelle trooped in with the rest of the team, who all looked like sheep that had been collected by an overly enthusiastic and slightly aggressive sheepdog with amazing curly hair.

“We don’t even have the topics assigned,” Abe pointed out.

“But if we read up on controversial issues, we’ll be prepared,” Michelle countered. “We’ll divide up by subject. To start, who wants environmental issues and who wants the death penalty?”

 

About six hours later, Peter was wondering when he was supposed to find time to research government subsidies for renewable energy while he waited for the cops to find the lower-level criminals he’d webbed up and left hanging from a gutter. See, he’d normally call the cops, but he’d kind of forgotten to charge his phone, so it was dead in his backpack in his room. If he left the criminals hanging there, the webbing might dissolve before the authorities found the bad guys. So Peter settled for bouncing his ricochet web off the wide of the building and trying not to think about how he should be studying.

The thing was, he was busy. Queens was experiencing a lot of spillover from increased gang activity in Hell’s Kitchen, so even though Peter wasn’t very familiar with Hell’s Kitchen, he’d decided a few days ago that he should try to cut off the problem at its source. Or at least investigate what was actually going on.

He hadn’t really thought about the fact that Hell’s Kitchen had its own not-so-friendly neighborhood vigilante.

“Spiderman.”

Peter whirled around at the low voice behind him. “You again!” His voice squeaked a bit in surprise. “You again,” he repeated more sternly. It was just that he wasn’t used to people sneaking up on him. Sharper hearing and all that. But Daredevil moved silently as a cat, though he probably wouldn’t appreciate the comparison.

Daredevil was standing in the shadows, probably because he thought it made him look more menacing. Well, Peter could confirm that it did in fact make him look more menacing. “What are you doing in Hell’s Kitchen?”

“Right,” Peter said slowly. “Because this is your turf. Got it. But I know for a fact that you let Luke Cage hang out here even though he’s from Harlem. I’m not saying I’m on the same level as Luke Cage, but if you don’t beat him up for coming here it’d be really unfair of you to beat me up, especially after I webbed these criminals up for you. See?” He gestured to the bad guys, clumped together and swinging like an oversized piñata.

“Luke Cage,” Daredevil answered evenly, “is not in high school.”

Peter stood very straight. “But I’m not in high school.”

“Oh, you’re a truant, then?”

“What? No!” But unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any way to insist that he was a grownup without sounding like…not a grownup. “Look, just stay in your lane, man.”

“Can’t do that.” Daredevil tilted his heads towards the criminals. “This is what you do? Web up criminals for the cops to find?”

“Yeah,” Peter said defiantly. “And you’re welcome.”

“Thank you,” Daredevil responded formally, to Peter’s surprise. He folded his arms across his chest. “Who are you? More importantly, who knows who you are?”

“No one. Nobody. I’m nobody.”

Daredevil pursed his lips. “Convincing.” Then he sighed. “Look, Spiderman. I usually have enough to worry about without tracking everything in international politics, but I did make a point of familiarizing myself with the Sokovia Accords. For obvious reasons. So I know that Tony Stark involved you.”

The way he said it suggested that he didn’t mean it as a compliment, but too bad: it definitely sounded like a compliment. Like word got around that Tony Stark thought Spiderman was the perfect guy for the Sokovia mission. Very cool.

“Does he know you’re fifteen years old?”

“Sixteen,” Peter corrected, then grimaced. “I mean, eighteen. Sorry, just had a birthday, tend to forget that I’m older. I’m eighteen now.”

Unsurprisingly, Daredevil did not seem fooled. “Does Stark know?”

Peter deflated. “Yeah.”

Daredevil gave a small nod that somehow managed to look threatening. (Peter instantly resolved to practice that technique later.) “All right, and who else? The rest of Stark’s team?”

“We were kind of focused on more important stuff, you know?” Peter mirrored him with his arms folded. “Speaking of which, why do you care?” He dropped his arms and set his shoulders back, trying to stand taller. “Actually, don’t answer that. I don’t care why you care because you don’t _get_ to care. It’s not your problem.”

“Actually, it is. For several reasons.”

Hooray. Peter braced himself for round infinity of Superpowered Adults Lecturing Youthful Spiderman On The Dangers of Superheroing.

“Firstly, because you chose to come here to Hell’s Kitchen which, as you pointed out, is my turf. Secondly, because now that I know you’re fifteen, failing to stop you means I’m guilty of conspiracy in the third degree for allowing you to participate in criminal activity.” He pointed his thumb at the bad guy piñata. “Thirdly, because one of those criminals is an informant and I need him to be capable of speech.”

“Oh.” Peter glanced over at the tangle of limbs.  “The webbing should dissolve in two hours.” He blinked. “Wait, what were you saying about conspiracy?”

“Vigilantism is illegal,” Daredevil said unironically.

Peter laughed before he could think better of it, and impulsively back-flipped several feet back because his instincts told him that Daredevil was not accustomed to people laughing at him. “Sorry, sorry.” He swallowed his laughter and fixed his posture. “You’re right. Vigilantism is a very illegal thing and all, but don’t you also think that laws are only real if they’re respected by average people? So if most people think we’re doing a good job, doesn’t that make the laws against us illegitimate?”

Daredevil slowly tilted his head to the side.

“Sorry, I’m writing this paper for my government class on legal positivism. It’s due tomorrow.” It occurred to Peter that he was now talking about homework with the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, and it also occurred to Peter that said Devil of Hell’s Kitchen probably didn’t know what legal positivism was, and all of that combined to form the realization that he was making himself sound like a very studious idiot.

Daredevil sighed heavily. “Go write your paper, kid.”

“It’s already done.” Mostly. He still had to double-check the citations.

Daredevil’s head cocked the other direction. “Go finish your paper.”

Could he read minds? Peter impulsively thought really hard about Tony Stark standing right behind Daredevil, but when the vigilante didn’t react, Peter concluded that mind-reading was not one of his superpowers. Still, Peter thought it better not to argue with him. He probably should start heading back towards Queens anyway, since he was hoping Michelle would be impressed by his research, although he was definitely still gonna stop if he heard anyone in trouble. “Sure thing, Mr. Daredevil. Have fun with your criminal in two hours.”

“Wait.” Daredevil held up a hand, looking deeply unenthusiastic. “Four fifty-five west fifty-seventh street. Friday. What time will you be there?”

What? “I’m pretty sure I never agreed to any of the stuff you seem to think I’ve agreed to.”

“Fogwell’s Gym,” he said, like that explained anything. “Does seven o’clock or eight work better?”

“Is this a trap?” Peter asked nervously. “Are you gonna call in the Punisher? Town’s not big enough for the both of us or something?”

“Bring your mask, but you don’t have to bring the suit. In fact, please don’t.”

“Okay, I get it, you’re better at being mysterious, but I’m not supposed to go to creepy old gyms with creepy old dudes I’ve never met just because they say so.”

“Seven o’clock, then,” Daredevil decided. “Go write your paper.”

Thinking it best not to argue, Peter waved good-bye (and cringed at himself for _waving_ at a scary vigilante) and shot webbing at someone’s balcony, wondering what just happened as he swung away.

 

Matt

“How’d it go?” Karen asked in a hushed voice, leaning on the edge of his desk. She glanced over her shoulder, presumably to check whether Foggy was paying attention. “With _Spiderman?_ ”

Matt wasn’t planning on telling Foggy about Spiderman just yet. He would at some point, definitely. But Matt had to wrap his own head around Spiderman’s youth first. “Karen, he’s…” A sixteen-year-old who’d been dragged away by Tony Stark to fight superpowered beings in another country. A high school student who was definitely now on the government’s radar. A kid who was trying to intervene in the Hell’s Kitchen gang wars that were escalating in the wake of Fisk’s second incarceration. “He’s a _nerd_.”

“What?”

“He tried to lecture me on legal positivism and vigilantism.”

Karen snorted. “Does he know who you are?”

“Definitely not.” Matt kneaded his forehead. “I told him to meet me at Fogwell’s this weekend, because I’m almost positive he doesn’t know how to actually throw a punch.”

“Because knowing what legal positivism is and knowing how to throw a punch are mutually exclusive?” she asked disapprovingly. “Have you seen yourself?”

“Not in over twenty years, no.”

She groaned loudly.

“I just mean, if I’d had enhanced strength of some kind, plus the ability to web people up whenever I wanted, maybe I wouldn’t have learned how to throw a punch either. Besides, I had Stick to teach me, and I’m pretty sure Spiderman doesn’t have a Stick.”

“You want to be Spiderman’s Stick?”

“Definitely not.” Matt stood up and reached for his cane. “I just need to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed, since I doubt anyone could convince him to stop being Spiderman altogether.” He scowled. “I’d settle for convincing him to wait until he’s eighteen, but I don’t think that would go over well either.”

“Hey.” Karen handed him his jacket. “I’m proud of you.”

He blinked behind his glasses. “For?”

“Nothing in particular.” She tugged him closer for a kiss. “Talk to you later.”

He hesitated, not sure if that was a general goodbye or a reference to some conversation she was actually planning. He knew she still had questions. She _always_ had questions. One would think, now that they were basically living together, that she’d be familiar enough with him to direct her curiosity elsewhere. Clearly, not so. Some of her questions were general: how the world appeared to his senses, what he thought about when he first woke up. He couldn’t help feeling that most of his answers were somehow a disappointment, but she kept asking anyway.

Some of her questions were specific: why he buried his Daredevil gear under his dad’s boxing stuff, his thoughts on something in the news or a particular case. He was also waiting for more questions about…the nightmares. She hadn’t asked again after the morning when she’d made him breakfast, for which he was profoundly thankful, and he’d been more careful to make sure she didn’t observe any. But he highly doubted that she would let the topic drop.

She also hadn’t asked about the conversation of a few weeks ago, the conversation about…even thinking it in his head made him feel uncomfortable.

Family.

As in…their own.

She obviously wanted to ask, wanted to have as many conversations as it took to bring them both onto the same page. Her page. But for now, she was giving him space and he knew it. It made him feel both childish and very loved. He shouldn’t need her to wait while he figured out how he felt about all of that, especially because he wasn’t exactly trying very hard. Actual effort would probably involve thinking about it for more than two seconds, and maybe talking with Maggie or even Foggy. Instead, he was letting her wait unanswered while he focused on literally anything else. But apparently, love was patient.

“Talk to you later,” he agreed, throwing a goodbye to Foggy over his shoulder as he ducked out of the office and waved for a cab.

He didn’t really enjoy taxis, but he vastly preferred not being seen walking from his office to therapy. It seemed unhealthy to nurture embarrassment about therapy, and besides, a large part of why he was going at all was for Ella’s sake. The last thing he wanted was for _her_ to feel embarrassed about seeing a psychologist. But at the same time, she was just a kid. It made sense why she might need therapy, while he should be able to handle…whatever…by now.

Besides. She wasn’t blind. People made enough assumptions about him already without knowing that he needed therapy.

Whatever. That was life. He didn’t care.

He saw Dr. Richland twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays straight after work. It was awkward to say the least. Both of their professions were both built around listening and problem-solving; one of them was simply better at being a well-adjusted person. It was strangely disheartening, which was probably not what Dr. Richland was going for.

He tapped his way into her office. There was a fish tank in the corner, which was weird but provided a nice distraction if the questions got too probing. Unfortunately, the office also smelled almost as bad as a doctor’s office, except with extra room spray—which made it worse. On the plus side, the acoustics were nice and the couch was one of the softest things he’d ever had the pleasure of sitting on.

“Welcome back, Matt,” Dr. Richland said, perched in her office chair, her whole body alight with the energy of someone who loved her job. “How’s Karen?”

He’d told Dr. Richland about Karen pretty much at the beginning—for strategic reasons. Karen was a fairly personal subject, personal enough that Dr. Richland couldn’t accuse him of not opening up or something. But of all the personal parts of the life, this part was the one he was the most proud of.

“She’s good,” he answered. “She just got hired by another law firm to track down some evidence, and Foggy and I can only hope they don’t steal her from us.”

“You could always steal her back,” Dr. Richland suggested playfully.

The small talk continued for a while, and Matt resorted to his usual game of trying to pin down the exact moment when she started transitioning into heavier topics. Today, the shift began with a question about how early his first meeting had been that morning. She steered the conversation backwards from there to questions about sleeping.

“And how are the nightmares?” she asked at last.

Well, he’d thought they were getting better. Now he wasn’t so sure. “It was pretty bad the other night,” he admitted reluctantly. “But there were some, ah…unusual stressors that day.”

“What kind of stressors?”

See, this was why he’d resisted seeing a psychologist for so long. Whatever might be wrong with him wasn’t confined to Kyle Conway’s death and he couldn’t talk about the rest of it. “I was…trying to help someone. Who was really scared.” Couldn’t explain how the scent of fear had followed him home, had clung to his skin even after his shower.

 _Make it stop, make it stop, please, please, please_.

“Was this last nightmare about the usual things?”

“There was…blood on my hands.” It had started with Fisk’s and turned into Kyle Conway’s. But the worst part was how Karen had wanted to know what he’d dreamed about, and part of him had wanted to tell her. She, after all, could understand far better than Foggy.

But that was exactly the problem. It wasn’t fair to force her to remember the things that had happened to her, the things she’d had to do, just so she could help him deal with something that was supposed to be in the past. Besides, for him, it wasn’t just the horror of what had happened. It was also the guilt. And maybe she could understand the horror, and she clearly regretted what had happened. But guilt?

He didn’t want her to feel guilty for what she’d had to do, but he couldn’t imagine not feeling his own guilt. If he didn’t feel it, that would mean that he didn’t care. But she was so clearly relieved that she’d killed Wesley. If he revealed how he clung to the guilt, what if she thought he was somehow judging her?

He wasn’t entirely sure that he wasn’t.

 

Karen

That evening, Karen was perfecting her lipstick in the bathroom when Matt raised his voice from the living room. “We’re gonna be late.”

“Fashionably late,” she corrected, examining her reflection.

He grumbled something inaudible, then piped up a moment later. “If you’d just tell me what we’re doing, I wouldn’t stress about being late.”

“Trust me, you can be as late as you want at this particular event. It’s all about you.”

“What?” He sounded startled.

“Don’t worry.” She popped the lid back on and tucked the lipstick into a drawer. Her drawer. In his bathroom. She smiled stupidly at it for a second before emerging into the living room to spin around once in place. “What do you think?”

He was sprawled on his stomach, eyes closed in concentration, with Frank sitting beside him. They were doing “clicker exercises,” as he called them, which he insisted was training Frank to be more observant. “You’re beautiful,” he told her.

“How would you know?” she asked, because she liked to hear him spell it out.

He handed Frank a final treat and stood up to face her, eyes still closed but head tilted thoughtfully. “You’re wearing that new perfume. It smells like the ocean. But there’s still your scent beneath it, and I think I like it even more now than I did yesterday, and I liked it more yesterday than the day before that.”

Smooth, Murdock. “Go on.”

He moved closer. “Your dress sounds nice. It flares out, or something.” He seemed to prefer dresses and earrings that swished when she moved, and she was happy to oblige. “Your hair is up. I hear it brush against your neck when you turn your head. It certainly _sounds_ beautiful. Your heart is pounding, and…” He drew even closer. “You should probably take deeper breaths.”

Hard to do when he was standing so close, eyes open now and focusing intently on her mouth. “And?”

He reached for her hand, then ran one finger up her arm as he started talking faster. “And you feel as soft and perfect as always, and I’m thinking maybe we could just stay home tonight?”

Laughing, she backed up to grab her coat. “Make sure you put Frank in her kennel. I’ve been planning this for too long to skip out. You ready?”

Clearly disappointed, he turned around to herd Frank into the kennel. “I _think_ I’m ready, but it’s hard to tell when I don’t know exactly what I’m supposed to be ready for.”

Exactly. After Foggy revealed that Matt had never enjoyed a surprise party in his honor, they’d brainstormed how to circumvent his lie detection. It seemed like their tactic was working: advertise the secrecy so that he knew something was going on, as long as he couldn’t figure out what.

He secured the kennel and returned to the hallway to hold the door open for her. “Hey, Karen?”

“Yeah?”

“I was wondering…” He followed her outside, then turned away to lock the door. “Have you heard from Stone at all?”

She bit her lip. “No, Matt. I’m sorry.”

He slipped the key into his pocket. “I figured you hadn’t. Just thought I’d double check.” They started down the stairs together. “But you…you’d tell me if you did, right?”

“Of _course_.” Taking his hand, she wound their fingers together. “Is it weird that I miss him too?”

His lips quirked up ruefully. “I never said I missed him.”

She squeezed his hand. “You didn’t have to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special shout-out to Geissbock and WhyWhyNot for suggesting Spiderman and for Ivorynia for suggesting therapy!


	3. I Cannot Find

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some AU-ish facts:  
> \- I'm assuming Matt/Foggy/Marci graduated from law school 10(ish) years ago and have no idea if that's technically accurate in terms of the show because the show seems blissfully unconcerned with a realistic law-school-related timeline (which, in fairness, is a consistent trend of the comics too).  
> \- I'm having Claire working at the hospital again for convenient plot reasons  
> \- the other Defenders know vaguely what Luke has been up to, but so far they've been too busy with their own various dramas to investigate him.  
> \- I'm not a Latvian expert; I just liked its proximity (far away from New York, close enough to Russia to justify tensions) and did a fun presentation on it once so I feel a special fondness towards it. It's barely even a plot point so if you'd rather I not portray Latvia this way I can try to pick another country.

Karen

Confusion crossed over his face as she punched in the code to enter her apartment. “I thought this was a work meeting?”

Of course he would assume that, because he was unbelievably boring. They’d been counting on it. “Kind of,” she said smugly. “It’s technically about work.”

He trailed along behind her up the stairs. “But why are we at your apartment?”

“Because Foggy thought the office would make it feel too much like a work day for a surprise party.”

He immediately stopped. “What.” His head tilted, no doubt picking up on the scents and heartbeats congregated just a few floors up.

She turned around to face him, looking down at him from a few steps up. “Foggy said you’ve never had a surprise party, so…surprise!”

He appeared torn between gratitude and indignation. “I take it Foggy didn’t mention that I’m not a fan of surprises.”

“He did, and that’s why I’m telling you now and letting you hear all their heartbeats instead of inviting you in first and them ambushing you. You can’t leave,” she said sternly, “but you can enjoy the warning.”

“Thanks,” he muttered as he adjusted his glasses, but there was a hint of a smile there too.

“Onwards?”

“Do I have a choice?” But he didn’t actually sound upset, so she assumed he was just grumbling on principle.

“They just wanna celebrate you. Getting your license back, specifically.”

“ _That’s_ what this is about?”

That, and the fact that they all loved him and thought he should know. But getting his license back was as good an excuse as any. “C’mon.” She tugged him the rest of the way to the apartment, holding the door open so he could venture inside.

“There he is!” Foggy crowed, the cast on his still-healing foot _thudding_ loudly against the floor. “El grande-est avocado!”

Thus began the process of each guest coming up to Matt to congratulate him personally, before basically returning to whatever conversation they’d been engaged in before. Karen had made it clear that the whole thing was supposed to be low-key, and those invited seemed to have gotten the message.

Overall, the scene wasn’t too crazy—no music, only a modest number of balloons. Still, Matt hovered slightly closer to Karen than normal, which was odd because all of the people here were supposedly his friends, with the possible (probable) exception of Marci, whom Karen had invited because it seemed like the right thing to do. There weren’t even that many people: Maggie, Claire, Jessica Jones, and, bouncing around like a puppy, Danny Rand. Yes, the billionaire whose life Matt had apparently saved. It felt a bit surreal. Foggy had wanted to invite Brett, too, but Karen thought that was mostly because he’d wanted to rub Matt’s acquittal in his face and she’d put her foot down. This was about Matt, and Matt and Brett were mere acquaintances, and besides, everyone else here knew the truth about his abilities. Since more people in one room generally meant he couldn’t be free with his senses, she wanted him to have this chance to just have fun.

And sure enough, his perfunctory annoyance over the ambush disappeared almost immediately. He was grinning now, but he kept his head tilted as if looking for something else. Then he stepped even closer to Karen. “Did you invite the Valliers?” he asked in a low voice.

“Um, no.” They’d thought about it, but there were plenty of reasons why Foggy had opposed the idea, beginning with the fact that Micah had testified against Matt and ending with the fact that Micah had been the reason anyone needed to testify against Matt in the first place. Sure, Matt was a forgiving person, but he was also too Catholic for his own good. “Really, Matt,” she said lightly, “it’s almost eight o’clock at night and we’re breaking out the alcohol. You think this is appropriate for Ella?”

He looked unconvinced. “From what I understand, babysitters can usually solve that problem.”

She felt a stab of guilt. She should’ve argued harder against Foggy…but then, she hadn’t been particularly excited at the thought of being around Micah either. “Next time,” she promised.

“Next time? Are you really so eager for me to lose my license so we can celebrate getting it back, Miss Page?”

She rolled her eyes and gave him a little push. “Go be social.”

“Always am.” He strolled over to Danny, who seemed to be trying to keep his distance from Jessica, who made some barbed comment whenever he strayed too close. But it looked like Danny kept forgetting to keep track of her, and Claire appeared to be keeping score of how often Jessica said something that made him retreat to the other side of the room. Karen was rooting for Danny but it seemed like a lost cause.

There was one another informal game going on, one slightly less amusing, perpetrated by Marci. She now knew all about Matt’s secrets and seemed highly aware of how uncomfortable Matt was with anyone additional knowing his secret. She kept trying to corner him, though Karen wasn’t sure what cornering him was supposed to accomplish. It didn’t matter, since cornering Matt was virtually impossible, so Marci switched tactics. Now it looked like she was whispering things under her breath, causing subtle grimaces to flash briefly across his face no matter what other conversation he was involved in.

Finally, Karen grabbed his tie and pulled him into the hallway, letting the guests assume whatever they wanted. “I _can_ kick her out, you know.”

He looked slightly wistful. “She’s Foggy’s fiancée, and it’s not that bad.”

“What’s she saying, anyway?”

“Well…a few things that are probably supposed to be jokes.”

Karen wasn’t so sure her motivations were that innocent. From what she could tell, Marci had been—understandably—upset by the toll Matt’s behavior had taken on Foggy. Her anger made sense, in a way. It wasn’t like Marci could fix the problem when Foggy wouldn’t even tell her what the problem actually was. But she didn’t need to bring it all up _here_.

“It’s not that bad,” Matt repeated quickly. “There are much worse things she could be saying about me. I don’t even think she realizes how…” He cut himself off. “Anyway, mostly it’s just, uh, inappropriate innuendo.” He kind of smiled. “She did that in law school, actually, the few times we studied together. Tried to distract me so she could beat me on the exams.”

“Did that work?”

He smirked. “Not even close.”

She straightened his tie, slightly askew from her earlier manhandling. “Well, don’t let her get to you.”

“Yeah, but…” He shifted his weight. “She’s not wrong. About some of it. I…really hurt Foggy. You know?”

“Yes,” she said matter-of-factly, “but your surprise party is _not_ the place to try to make you feel bad for it, and besides, Foggy’s forgiven you, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Matt admitted, tilting his head away but smiling softly.

“Good. And in case you forgot, so have I.”

 

Matt

It was a bit easier to ignore Marci after that. It was even easier after he sidled up behind her and whispered, “Sixteen.”

She turned around. “Sixteen?” she asked coolly.

“You were sixteen places behind me in class rankings when we graduated.”

“Ten years ago,” she scorned.

“Sorry, I had a flashback since you’ve been acting like a twelve-year-old.”

“Sounds like an insult to twelve-year-olds everywhere,” Claire remarked, joining them with a beer in one hand and a paper plate of cheese in the other.

With a toss of her hair, Marci stalked away. To Matt’s surprise, she sat on the couch a safe distance away from Jessica where they started heckling Danny together.

“Poor Danny,” Claire remarked. “I feel like he was invited here just to be miserable.”

Matt cocked his head. “Nah. He’s explaining the Iron Fist thing to my mom and she’s actually _listening_. Since, you know, she’s good at that.”

“She really is a saint,” Claire murmured approvingly.

He felt a rush of pride and helped himself to one of her pieces of cheese. “Hey, Claire?” he began.

“No.”

He blinked. “What?”

“I know that look. You want my help with something, probably something you have no business getting involved with, but that won’t stop you.”

“Can’t stop, won’t stop,” he said cheerily, then sobered. “I think there might be some new drug on the streets and I wondered if you’d come across it.”

She took a long sip of her beer. “If you’re asking me to steal toxicology reports, I will _pointedly_ remind you that I’m on my last chance with the hospital, and I will _resolutely_ insist that you find some other nurse to break policies.”

He grinned despite himself. “Nothing that bad. Just…have you come across anything weird?”

“I work in a hospital, Matt. I come across more weird things in weird places than I know what to do with.” She batted his hand away from her plate.

Time, then, to try out a technique he was considering stealing from Ella, if it worked. With deliberate slowness, he slid his glasses off and cocked his head at Claire with a half-smile. “Please?”

She muttered something in Spanish, too quick for him to quite catch. “You are not a puppy.”

“C’mon, Claire. I’ll take whatever you can give me.”

He could practically hear her scowl. “All right, fine. But I’m only telling you this because it’s not _actually_ breaking protocol, and because it’s your party. Not because whatever you think you're doing with your face is actually working. And I’m _not_ signing up to be your personal spy at the hospital.”

“I know,” he said eagerly, ignoring the fact that she was definitely lying about the effectiveness of whatever he was doing with his face.

She lowered her voice slightly.  “You’re right, there’s some kind of new drug or something. It seems to be based off datura stramonium, maybe mixed with some kind of anticoagulant.”

“Datura stramonium?” Now that she was giving him what he wanted, he put his glasses back on.

“One of the most poisonous plants on earth, native to South America. It has a whole catalogue of nasty effects, one of which is terrifying auditory, visual, and tactile hallucinations. Supposedly.”

He frowned. “Why would they take it?”

She huffed. “My guess is, not voluntarily. Hard to know, though, since the drug causes memory loss along with everything else. Even after patients recover, they can’t tell us where they were when they were dosed.”

“But they _do_ recover?”

“Within about forty-eight hours, usually.” She folded her arms over her chest. “We monitor them, obviously, which is not fun. Severe doses cause horrible nausea plus increased sensitivity to light and sound, so they hate the hospital almost as much as you do.”

“Hey,” he said plaintively.

She shrugged. “Benzos and sodium bicarbonate usually manage to calm them down. They’re still pretty shaken up by the time they’re discharged, but I know of at least two repeat patients, and…well, like I said, I don’t see anyone taking devil’s hell by choice. Definitely not twice."

“Devil’s hell?”

“One of its other names. Datura stramonium is commonly called devil’s weed, or devil’s trumpet, or some other devil thing, so I guess whoever’s producing this version decided to run with the motif.” He could hear the dry amusement in her voice. “It’s like they named it just for you.”

He snorted. “So you think someone’s pushing this onto people? Have you talked with the cops about it?”

“Not personally, but various officers have talked to enough of the doctors that they know something’s going on.” She bumped him with her shoulder. “So maybe you can take a back seat on this one? Focus on your legal career?”

“Sure,” he said, not even trying to sound convincing. He could track down the drug better than any dogs, and if she was right that this wasn’t being consumed voluntarily, that meant people needed help. He remembered kid he’d found the other night, far too young to be caught up in any of this. He remembered the taste of the kid’s fear.

“Matt,” she said warningly.

“What?”

“I’m serious. I want you to stay out of this.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Why?”

“Do I really need to explain why I don’t want you anywhere near a fear-inducing hallucinogen that increases sensitivity to sound?”

He smirked. “At least the light sensitivity won’t bother me.”

“I hate you. I really do.”

He simply got her another beer in thanks for her help and stole another piece of cheese from her plate when she wasn’t looking.

So overall, the party wasn’t actually that bad. Foggy and Karen had clearly put a lot of thought into putting together an event that he wouldn’t have to pretend to enjoy. It would’ve been nice to have Luke over as well, but Luke was…busy. Mostly, he wished Micah and Maeva could have been there and didn’t quite understand why they hadn’t been invited.

Which was why he accepted immediately when they reached out the next day to invite him to their house for dinner. He’d meant to work on an oral argument for an upcoming hearing—he and Foggy offered unbundled services to clients who didn’t want to retain them throughout an entire legal proceeding, and in this case he was just helping someone who was stressed at the mere thought of speaking out loud in court—but he wasn’t worried. He could reorganize some of his other work to make sure he was ready for the hearing. In the meantime, he’d get to see Ella again.

He was so busy anticipating the evening that he forgot to be nervous until he was on their doorstep, breathing in the hearty scent the meal waiting for him inside. He ran his hand over his tie to double-check that it was straight. More or less. Then he told himself to stop being ridiculous. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been to their house before. But it _was_ the first time he’d visited as…himself.

He knocked. The sound was satisfying, echoing through the thicker oak wood that offered far more security than the flimsy door of his own apartment.

Tiny feet stampeded towards him and Ella ran straight into him the instant after she yanked the door open. His ribs had healed up—mostly—so he didn’t mind. “I missed you!” she yelled. “Do you like spinach cake?”

He was sure he’d misheard. “Cake?”

Maeva appeared behind her. “Again, it’s called spinach fandango, Ella.” Wiping her hands on an apron—people actually still used those?—she propped the door open with her foot and tugged Ella back inside. “I hope you’re hungry, Matt.”

“If I wasn’t before, I would be now. It smells amazing.”

“Good,” she said, with just enough satisfaction to suggest she knew how significant that was.

Ella skipped ahead of them down the front hall. “Matt, I have to show you what I’m making for my other mom!”

“Other mom?” he asked.

“My…” She considered it. “First mom? It’s almost her birthday and I thought I could make her a dog like Frank with that stuff you gave me for Christmas. _Putty_.” She pronounced it carefully.

“Right,” he said stupidly, remembering that of course Ella would still be visiting with her biological mother, who didn’t have custody but was nevertheless allowed some structured interactions. He wasn’t sure what to make of that fact, but Ella didn’t seem to expect any kind of commentary. Barely giving him time to set aside his cane, she shoved something into his hands that felt remarkably familiar. “Is this…Frank?”

“It is!” she exclaimed delightedly. “You can tell!”

“Well, you’re a really good artist.”

“I’m gonna go tell my mom!” She dashed off to boast loudly to Maeva in the kitchen.

Hearing Micah enter the room behind him, Matt retrieved his cane. “So Elizabeth is still around,” he observed. “How’s Ella doing with that?”

Micah sighed deeply. “We’re not sure. She won’t admit it to us, but I think she’s afraid that something will go wrong and she’ll have to go back to what her life was like before. I’m sure her mother is…” He paused as if searching for an appropriate adjective. “I’m sure she really cares about Ella,” he offered finally. “But with Maeva and me, she’s part of a real family. I wish she could just believe that it’ll last.”

Matt wrapped his hands tighter around the grip of his cane. “Time,” he offered quietly. “It’ll take a lot of time.”

To Matt’s surprise, Micah moved past him to close the door between the living room and the kitchen, then turned around to face him. “What makes you say that?”

“I, uh…I lost my parents when I was ten. Lived at a place like Everett’s until I went to college.”

Micah was silent for a moment, apparently processing this. “I didn’t know.”

Matt shrugged.

“Can I…” Micah paused again. “Would it be appropriate for me to…?”

“You can ask me about it. I don’t mind.” Well, he didn’t mind in theory, although it wasn’t hard to imagine how uncomfortable such a conversation could easily become. Still, if it would help Ella, he was determined to handle it.

“But you never…you only lived at the, uh, institution?”

“St. Agnes Orphanage. And yes. Parents weren’t exactly lining up to take on the…” He gestured towards his glasses. “Extra challenge. So, never having had a new family like Ella has with you, I’m not sure how helpful I can be.”

Micah nodded and Matt wondered for a moment if that would be the end of it. “Maeva and I asked her therapist about it. She suggested some ideas for how to demonstrate that we accept her, no matter what she does or doesn’t do. We found some other ideas online about how to build attachment.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Frankly, none of it seems like it would be enough, given what she’s gone through.”

Attachment. Huh. Matt narrowed his eyes as he tried to consider, objectively, where he’d felt the most…attachment…through the years. Foggy was the obvious example. Despite the moments of separation between them, they kept coming back together. After everything that happened with Conway and the trial, Matt was, strangely, no longer afraid that the next bad thing would drive Foggy away. Even if the next bad thing was Matt’s fault. And part of that was definitely because Foggy had been steadfast through all the most recent chaos, but part of it was also because Foggy had demonstrated his commitment so thoroughly through the early years of their friendship, a commitment the likes of which Matt hadn’t known since he lost his dad.

“What do you think?” Micah asked.

“Hugs,” Matt blurted out. He fiddled with the strap of his cane. “Just, you know, lots of…casual physical contact. Like it’s not a big deal, because it’s natural, because you just…want her to know how you feel. Not if she doesn’t like them, obviously, but…”

“But Ella isn’t exactly averse to hugs,” Micah finished.

“Right. So.” Matt cleared his throat. “That’s an idea.” Then he waited, somewhat tensely, hoping that Micah would leave it at that rather than try to read in a bunch of subtext and conclude that maybe Matt was also lacking for _casual physical contact_. “Oh, watch out—Ella’s coming.”

She barely knocked before flinging the door open. “Mom says it’s ready!”

“Ella, I told you to knock if the door is closed,” Maeva reproved her.

“I _did_ ,” she protested.

“We had a fair warning,” Matt said, ignoring Micah’s laughter behind him.

“Superhearing doesn’t count,” Maeva said primly. “Come on and eat before the food gets cold.”

It wasn’t a big thing, hearing her talk about his senses like that. Except…Matt hadn’t told her himself. Micah or Ella must have explained what they knew of his abilities at some point. Yet she hadn’t felt the need to interrogate him about them herself. In fact, he couldn’t pinpoint any change in her behavior towards him that indicated when, exactly, she’d learned the truth. To be fair, he didn’t know her that well. But it was a bit unnerving, like he’d passed a test he hadn’t even realized he’d been taking.

They sat down at the same table where Matt had enjoyed hot chocolate not so long ago, but this time the table was laden with rolls, salad, and some kind of casserole which he assumed was Ella’s spinach cake. Micah took charge of serving everyone while Maeva asked about Matt’s day. He kept his answers brief and redirected back to their family as soon as possible, pleased when they didn’t resist.

“Ella,” Micah said, giving her a much smaller portion, “tell me about your presentation today.”

“You mean, tell Matt?” she asked.

“Sure, but also tell me.”

She sounded exasperated. “Daddy, you were _there_.”

“I shifted my lunch break around,” Micah explained to Matt; it couldn’t have been easy since, unlike Matt, Micah was not his own boss. He focused on Ella again. “Just because I know what happened doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear what you thought of it.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know you better,” he said simply.

“You already know me!”

“I know. But I still want to know you better.”

She seemed to think about this. When she finally started talking about the presentation, Matt wasn’t sure if it was because she actually understood what Micah was saying or just because she understood that he wanted to hear about the presentation again. Either way, she was enthusiastic. Either way, Micah obviously enjoyed hearing about it.

Either way, Matt was thankful to witness it.

 

Stone

There were certain signals associated with the Hand, especially when joined with other factors, some of which were contradictory.

For instance, countries of great instability offered, on the one hand, opportunities for more overt activity without triggering a government’s repression. Instability also invited the Hand to pick sides, pit warning factions against each other, court both side’s favor. Evidence of a third party intervening was the first warning sign in an unstable region. As for stable governments, they tended to have more resources, either monetary resources for the Hand to steal or coercive resources for the Hand to manipulate.

Personally, Stone preferred missions in the stabilized countries and not merely for the creature comforts. He enjoyed the added challenge of thwarting an effective security force. He remembered that Stick always disagreed. Stick found amusement in avoiding detection as well, but such efforts always involved some level of adherence to more refined social norms, and Stick never enjoyed adhering to any norms but his own.

Latvia was an interesting mix. There was enough tension, internally and externally, to allow Stone to pass through the streets more or less unseen. In the meantime, he could enjoy the use of a reliable public library that allowed beverages.

Now, for example, he was sipping one of the best coffees he’d ever tasted while researching exsanguination cases in a two-hundred-kilometer radius. He wasn’t convinced that the Hand was engaged in exsanguination at all, but it seemed reasonable to assume that any plan to resurrect the organization, if not its particular leaders, would involve stealing bodily fluids. So far, his trips to areas with abnormal amounts of exsanguination cases had frequently brought him into contact with one or two idle Hand members, though he was unsure what their plans actually involved or even if the various individuals were coordinating. He didn’t like not knowing, but he hadn’t been able to track down any survivors of the Chaste. He was on his own to figure this out.

There was indeed an uptick in such cases in Lithuania, enough to raise alarms. Certainly enough to justify a plane ticket, especially given the lucrative results of his recent interaction with a politician who had ties to the Hand. Blackmail paid well.

He was just about to leave the library when he pulled up another tab to investigate cases near Hell’s Kitchen. Truthfully, he couldn’t even call the activity impulsive; it had become a habit. Stone was capable of enough emotional honesty with himself to acknowledge that he hoped for an excuse to return to Hell’s Kitchen. It wasn’t that he needed an ally. It wasn’t even that he was so much more effective with an ally. The truth was simply that his work was just more _fun_ with an ally.

Nevertheless, Stone had so far failed to find any evidence of Hand activity anywhere near New York ever since he’d relieved Gao’s body of the weight of its head. But today, clicking through the medical database finally revealed something interesting. Not exsanguination cases, technically. Not yet. There was, however, an odd number of cases related to some kind of drug that seemed to have been deliberately combined with an anticoagulant. He drug itself also caused memory loss. If this was the Hand, it would be an easy way to drain victims and leave them with a diminished capacity to explain what they’d endured.

Well, flying out to New York _immediately_ seemed premature, but Stone resolved to keep an eye on the situation while he investigated the nearby Lithuanian hospitals and clinics. If the drug cases hadn’t died down, it might be worth looking into them personally. After all, Hell’s Kitchen was notorious for Hand activity. If this was a new strategy by some rising leader, better to counter it sooner rather than later.

Out of idle curiosity, he quickly looked up any news articles related to the cases, wondering if any reporters were connecting Daredevil to the drug. Perhaps Matty knew enough to be concerned. Stone could just call him, of course. But he felt averse to that approach and, for some reason, didn’t quite want to analyze why.

But he did notice that the drug had been nicknamed devil’s hell. Wasn’t that adorable?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutouts!  
> \- Shadowspark who wanted Matt to be able to celebrate getting his license back  
> \- SandyEffingFrank who wanted Matt and Marci (I'm sorry she's such a jerk here) and who wanted Matt's friends working together to convince him that they love him  
> \- Me who wanted Matt helping Micah (well, technically you wanted Matt helping Micah as a lawyer which is brilliant but I have another legal plot thread already)  
> \- Eccho who pointed out that Foggy and Karen are probably not thrilled with Micah at this point


	4. Pull Me In

Brett

He didn’t keep any notes on the issue. He didn’t share his opinion with anyone. In fact, he avoided any conversations where the topic might possibly come up. In short, he did everything in his power to keep himself insulated.

But if someone asked him, while he was under oath, if he thought he knew who Daredevil was…he’d have to say yes.

If someone asked him, while he was under oath, _who_ he thought Daredevil was…he’d have to point to Matthew Murdock, Esquire.

It was kind of obvious once you stopped and thought about it, which was pretty embarrassing considering how long it took Brett to put the pieces together. He was glad that no one else on the force seemed to realize—not only because it meant Daredevil could keep doing his thing but because it meant Brett didn’t feel as oblivious.

But still. He was a detective, and a sergeant before that. Observance and recognition made up his first line of defense and he’d failed to connect the dots time after time. Especially humiliating was the sheer number of times Brett had encountered the guy face-to-face, both in the mask and in the red sunglasses.

Things started to crystalize when Murdock had shown up basically back from the dead. Apparently, he'd thought his best move was breaking into a prison. Or…breaking out of a prison? Mahoney still wasn’t sure on the details. The footage from security cameras had been deleted and no one who knew anything was talking. Still scared of Fisk, even though the Fisk was rotting in a cell. Then again, a cell hadn’t stopped Fisk last time.

And after that, the ex-lifer who was supposed to be in that particular prison popped onto the scene, very much _not_ in danger and dragged along by the scruff of his neck by one Karen Page—former employee of Murdock.

And after _that_ , Nelson and Murdock had managed to hunt down the one guy who was involved enough in Fisk’s operation to actually be useful. Coincidence? Not likely. Add to that the fact that Nadeem obviously trusted the two of them with keeping his family safe. Well, Brett knew Nelson had some skill with a baseball bat, but a fat lot of good that would do against the corrupt FBI.

And Murdock was blind.

Clearly, something else was going on there. In a world with super strength and alien attacks, Brett knew better than to think that blindness was a slam dunk defense against vigilantism.

But Brett hadn’t been certain until he’d seen Murdock and Nadeem at the courthouse for the grand jury. Everything had been so chaotic that Brett had only gotten a glimpse, but something about the way Murdock moved told Brett everything he needed to know. He hadn’t moved like a civilian caught in a crossfire; he hadn’t moved like a blind man who’d been used for target practice. He’d moved like someone who couldn’t quite pretend he didn’t relish the adrenaline of a fight.

So yeah. By the time Brett had crashed into Fisk’s penthouse to see Poindexter paralyzed on the floor, he’d already known it was Murdock who was slipping away in the black pajamas.

Brett should absolutely do something with this knowledge. He knew that. Was painfully aware of it. But Daredevil put Fisk away. Twice. And facilitated the capture of Frank Castle. Brett could appreciate that. But then Murdock volunteered to defend Castle, and then Murdock didn’t even show up for opening statements—if you could believe the gossip, and it was all on record so Brett had no trouble believing the gossip. All of it made him wonder if Murdock might have a bit more crazy in him than you’d want in your neighborhood vigilante. All of it made Brett kind of wish Hell’s Kitchen had gotten Spiderman instead. Everybody liked Spiderman.

But none of that stopped Brett from showing up at the office of Nelson, Murdock, and Page. See, Brett’s duty was to the citizens of Hell’s Kitchen, and protecting them meant using every resource at his disposal. If he had a direct line to the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen…he was just doing his duty in exploiting that.

The problem was, he couldn’t just ask _Murdock_ , and as for asking Daredevil…well, Brett knew from experience that catching the vigilante was impossible, and trying to force a conversation on him could easily end in a sprained wrist for Brett, if not something worse. And Brett had a thousand questions about that, but he had to prioritize.

He needed to talk to Nelson. Which was not going to be pleasant.

“Wow,” Nelson said, loudly and unprofessionally, as soon as Brett stepped into his office.

Brett looped his thumbs through his belt but maintained his strict posture. He was begging, but he didn’t have to _look_ like he was begging. “Long time no see, Nelson.”

“You know what? Not that long at all, Brett. I saw you pretty recently, in fact. On the witness stand, testifying against my best friend.”

“It’s part of the job. You know that.”

“You know what’s _not_ part of the job? You showing up here. What do you even want?”

Brett pinched his lips together before answering. “I want you to contact Daredevil for me.”

Nelson gaped at him in silence for a second. “ _Wow_. You do realize that my partner was acquitted of the conspiracy charges. No thanks to you.”

“But we both know that even if Murdock wasn’t working with Daredevil on that particular night, your firm is more tangled up with the vigilante than anyone.”

“Probably not anyone,” Nelson said dryly. “I bet Daredevil has a girlfriend or something. You’ve seen those abs.”

Brett narrowed his eyes. “I haven’t, actually. Have you?”

Nelson waved a dismissive hand. “That black shirt is skintight; everyone’s seen it. What do you want with him, anyway?”

“I want him to help me track down a new criminal.”

“Okay, wow.” His voice dripped with derision. “You testify against my friend, _and_ against Daredevil, and now you’re asking for my help to get his help?”

“I’m not any happier about this than you are, but people are getting hurt out there. This new drug going around—devil’s hell? We can’t pin it down, can’t figure out where it’s coming from or who’s distributing it.”

Nelson folded his arms. “And so far, the victims have been almost entirely individuals with previous arrests for violent crimes.”

“You saying this is some kind of vigilante justice? In which case you’re okay with it, I guess.”

Nelson stiffened. “You’re supposed to track down criminals, and that includes Daredevil as well as whoever’s behind devil’s hell. I’m not doing your job for you.”

“Think of it like a favor,” Brett snapped. “Daredevil helps out now, and maybe the next time he’s in legal trouble, I try to pull some strings.”

“Can I get that in writing?” Nelson snapped back. “Look, Brett, why don’t you just put up a Daredevil signal or something? Shine some red horns on the side of a building.”

Wasn’t a bad idea, unless it was true that Murdock really was blind. “Would that work?” Brett asked, watching him closely.

Nelson’s eyes hardened under the intensity of Brett’s stare. “Why wouldn’t it?”

Brett stepped back. “No reason. I guess if you can’t help me, I’ll have to do this on my own.”

“Have fun with that.” Nelson skirted past him and held open the door.

Well, Brett could take a hint. “Guess I’ll just have to talk to Daredevil myself.” He stepped outside. “Maybe with a SWAT team or something. Could be fun, and I bet they'd have no problem hunting him down. What do you think?”

Nelson scowled. “If you’re just gonna waste tax dollars, I’ll see if I can find him first.”

“Good luck,” Brett offered, keeping the smugness from his tone thanks to years of being a professional. “He’s not easy to hunt down.”

Nelson slammed the door shut.

 

Foggy

He expected to find Matt blowing up a punching bag, but he didn’t hear the rapid _thuds_ of fists in fabric or the creak of the chain. Instead, he stepped inside to see Matt dancing in the ring, silhouetted against the dirty windows.

Dancing. There was really no other word for it.

Two thin cords snaked around his ears. If he was listening to music, that at least explained why he apparently hadn’t noticed Foggy. It also explained why he seemed guided by a specific tempo. His every movement was still a terrifying combination of grace and lethality, apparently taking on multiple imaginary opponents at once. Leaning against the wall, Foggy settled in to watch. Unlike Karen, he didn’t enjoy witnessing Matt tear into a punching bag—every strike was too full of rage, and Foggy couldn’t help wondering who Matt was picturing at the other end of his blows.

This was different. This was strangely beautiful.

After about three minutes, he suddenly stopped and looked towards Foggy. Not that it made a difference, but Foggy noted early in their friendship that he still instinctively turned his head when he was startled. Leftover from nine years of sight, probably.

“Foggy?” His voice was slightly louder than normal.

“Nope, Thor.”

“I doubt it. You don’t taste electric enough.” Matt pulled out his earbuds, but the music was still playing.

Setting aside the whole tasting-electricity thing, because _weird_ , Foggy squinted at him. “Is that…Spanish rap?”

“Don’t judge me.” Matt wiped sweat off his forehead. “What’s up?”

“Brett came to see me.”

“I know.”

“How?” Not that Foggy really wanted to know. He possibly would never _want_ to know the details how Matt sensed the world, details that Matt had kept secret for so many years. But Matt seemed to brighten every time Foggy expressed interest.

Sure enough, Matt grinned as he reached for his water bottle. “You smell like the precinct, plus cigars.”

Foggy sniffed surreptitiously at his sleeve. “Brett and I didn’t even shake hands. That’s so creepy.”

“What did he want?”

“To enlist Daredevil’s help to deal with that new drug on the streets.”

Matt quickly swallowed his mouthful of water. “After testifying against me? And, indirectly, against Daredevil?”

“Of everyone at the NYPD, Brett’s never really been lacking in balls if he thinks something’s wrong.”

“I guess.” Matt set the bottle down and rolled his shoulders. “So, what did you tell him?”

“That I’d come talk to you. I mean, not _you_ , obviously, but…you know.”

“Well, he didn’t need to ask. I’m already looking into it.” He paused, smirking. “Don’t tell Brett that, though. Let him think he owes me.”

“After the trial, he _definitely_ owes you.” Foggy leaned against the lockers while Matt started loading stuff into his gym bag. “So…you’re being careful, right? With that devil’s hell stuff? It sounds pretty severe.” Not that Foggy was an expert, but he’d read some articles on it. Victims of the highest doses were basically insane during the hallucinations and at least two people had bled out from the anticoagulant after thrashing around and cutting themselves.

“I’ll be fine,” Matt said patiently.

“See, you say that _now_ , but I am strangely unconvinced that we won’t find ourselves dealing with a worst-case devil’s hell scenario.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“You don’t know the meaning of the word!”

Matt’s jaw ticked. “This drug is tearing this city apart, and it’s not random. I have to stop this, and I’m not asking your permission. Sometimes being Daredevil means taking risks. You know that.”

“And being Daredevil’s best friend means I can’t stop worrying about you.”

“I know,” Matt said emphatically. “But the people out there? The people getting hit with this stuff? They’re suffering. And I’m sorry that it might…” His eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry that it’ll hurt you if something happens to me, but at some point, I have to do what this city needs me to do…even if it hurts you.”

“What point is that? When five people are suffering? Twenty?”

“Don’t ask me to pick a number.”

Yeah, that was unfair. “Sorry, man. Maybe I’m just jealous that you’re such a better person.”

Matt’s mouth quirked upwards. “I’m really not.” He headed for the door. “You coming?”

“Are you inviting me to hang out with Frank? If so, _yes_.” Marci was out of town working on a deposition and Josie’s definitely beat Foggy’s previous plan of sleeping.

“Only if you’re okay with me taking her to the office.”

Matt had begun trying to persuade Foggy to let Frank come hang out at the office shortly after Foggy and Marci brought the dog back to his place for good. Foggy was eighty-two percent sure it was a sign of how badly Matt had actually missed the labradoodle during the trial, though Matt was refusing to admit it. He kept insisting he wanted her around “for security purposes” and “to enhance her training.” Foggy frowned. “Why can’t we go back to the apartment?”

“Because Karen and I wanted to exchange notes on the Morehouse case.”

“It’s after five on a Friday,” Foggy protested, following him outside.

“Well, I have a very small window to operate in.” Matt raised his hand for a taxi. “I have to come back here to train Spiderman tonight.”

“What,” Foggy spluttered.

Matt grinned and started talking about Spiderman and it wasn’t until Matt was waiting outside of his apartment with Frank on a leash, tracking the a pet-friendly uber he’d called instead of a taxi, that Foggy realized how thoroughly he’d been distracted from his objections about the labradoodle.

 

Foggy thought Matt and Karen had come here intending to work. He really did. But at some point, they’d gotten sidetracked. Foggy still wasn’t sure what triggered it, exactly, since he’d been focusing on keeping Frank away from his snack drawer in his office. All he knew was that by the time he gave up and fed Frank a handful of chips (which Matt would be furious about, once he realized), Matt and Karen had stopped strategizing about the Morehouse case and started arguing about…kids.

Theirs.

“Tell me exactly why you think this is a good idea,” Matt was saying flatly.

They hadn’t forgotten Foggy was there, had they? But he had no idea why they would argue about this in front of him instead of going somewhere more private. Unless they thought of him as family and really didn’t care? Well, that was touching, but Foggy had _not_ signed up for this level of intimacy. With either of them, frankly.

“You _do_ want kids at some point, right?” Karen insisted.

“I really haven’t though about it that much.”

Given the instability of his life, that was probably true. And after Elektra left the first time, it wasn’t like he’d even had that much opportunity. Definitely not with Karen, not until recently, because Foggy was ninety-nine percent sure that Matt might be able to justify lying to a girlfriend about his senses but not about lying to the mother of his…wow, yeah, they were really going there.

“Family, then,” Karen said. “You want a family.”

“I have a family,” Matt said weakly.

“ _Our own_ family,” Karen insisted.

Privately, Foggy thought that if she had to argue him into agreeing, that couldn’t be a great sign. But no way was he about to go out there and suggest that.

“What about your job?” Matt demanded.

“I’m a private investigator. I can take on clients whenever. And _your_ job has never been more stable.”

That was actually kind of true, which was a bit jolting considering where they’d been just a few weeks ago ago: Matt with a criminal conviction and no license.

Karen waited, but Matt didn’t refute her points. “Please, just talk to me. Do you _not_ want to try?”

“I…”

She kept waiting.

“Why right now?”

“Because we can,” she said quietly.

Which was a deceptively simple statement, given the tumult of both their lives.

It sounded like they were moving closer together—physically if not metaphorically. Matt murmured something that didn’t quite sound like agreement, but did sound sickeningly romantic, and Foggy was suddenly worried about what might follow.

“You guys do realize I’m here?” he called, voice just high-pitched enough to be embarrassing. “And that this is an office building open to the public?”

“Shut up,” Matt called back.

 

Peter

Peter still couldn’t believe he was meeting up with Daredevil. Although it was weird to see the other vigilante dressed in sweats and a T-shirt with his black mask. Frankly, he looked super sketchy as he bent over the doorknob at some crappy gym called Fogwell’s that smelled like old socks. Seconds later, the door swung open.

Peter gaped. “Did you—did you just pick the lock?”

“No.” Daredevil stepped inside, immediately swallowed up by the shadows.

“Dude,” Peter whispered. He followed, wrinkling his nose. “You know this place smells, right? That’s not just me being…me. This definitely smells bad to normal people.”

“Probably.” Daredevil just kept walking, like he didn’t care whether Peter followed.

So Peter trotted after him. “How old is this place?”

Daredevil shrugged, then held open another door. Peter walked through to see a wide training area, lit by yellow streetlights glowing through the smudged floor-to-ceiling windows. Punching bags hung in one corner, but the area was dominated by a boxing ring.

“Whoa,” Peter breathed. “This is where you train? Not gonna lie, I was picturing some kind of lair or something. Not that this isn’t cool,” he added hurriedly. “Just kinda…grungy.”

Daredevil set his bag on the bench and beckoned with his fingers. Once Peter was close enough, he held up some boxing tape. “You know how to use this?”

“Yeah!” Dropping his own bag on the ground, Peter reached for the tape and quickly discovered that he did not, in fact, know how to use it.

Daredevil’s head cocked and his mouth quirked up mockingly. “You sure?”

“Um.” Peter fumbled with the tape and it dropped to the ground, unspooling. “Sorry.”

With a strange sound between a sigh and a chuckle, Daredevil picked it back up. “Let me see.”

Peter really hoped the guy didn’t realize how wide his eyes were as he held out his hand for Daredevil to wrap up his wrist. _Daredevil_ was currently _wrapping up his wrist_. It was one thing to wear Mr. Stark’s fancy suit but this? This was like…the real world.

“What’s this?” Daredevil tapped the small webshooter strapped under his wrist.

“Ooh, careful. It’s my webbing.”

The half of his face that Peter could actually see looked impressed. “You brought your webs but not your suit, which means you’re not planning on fighting anyone, but you’ll fight me if you have to.”

Peter was still mostly confident that mind-reading wasn’t Daredevil’s superpower. “Pretty much. No offense.”

“None taken. You got a mouth guard or anything?”

“Uh, yeah. In my bag.” Peter backed up and unzipped it. A least, he was pretty sure he had a mouth guard.

“What about a water bottle?”

“Uh.” He couldn’t find the mouth guard and was starting to feel like he’d shown up for a test without a pencil. “No.”

“I brought a spare.” Sure enough, Daredevil pulled two bottles from his bag. “Where’s your mouth guard?”

Peter glanced up apologetically. “Sorry, I know I have it in here somewhere…”

“Let me see.” Daredevil’s voice left no room for argument, so Peter backed away. Crouching by the bag, he started rifling through almost blindly. But he was empty-handed when he stood back up, which was odd because his expression suggested that he’d found something gross. “I have some questions.”

“Cool, because I have answers. Pi. Nigeria. Nineteen-fourteen. Sodium hydrogen bicarbonate. _No tengo mi tarea_.”

Daredevil looked supremely unamused. “You think you’re a superhero, don’t you?”

Peter felt himself flush. “Well, I don’t use that word. My friend does, though.”

“You think you’re responsible enough to go out every night, trying to keep people safe?”

“I think it’s worked so far,” Peter said defensively.

Daredevil nodded once, but the inquisition wasn’t over. “You have people you care about, correct? Like that friend of yours?”

Peter didn’t answer, but he was sure the way his entire body stiffened gave him away.

“And you have dangerous enemies.”

“I mean, most of the criminals in Queens aren’t exactly lining up to buy Spiderman swag, but—”

“You ever worry that those dangerous enemies might figure out who the people are that you care about?”

“What is this?” Peter demanded. “You think I haven’t already thought of all that?”

“I think you’re an idiot for walking around with your webshooters when you have _this_ in your bag!” Daredevil yanked something out of the abyss of the bag and, yep, it was gross. It was an old basketball jersey from some stupid summer sports camp thing three years ago.

And it had the name _Parker_ emblazoned on the back in gaudy green stitching.

“That’s not mine,” Peter blurted out. “That’s a friend’s. My friend’s. The one I just mentioned.”

Daredevil threw the jersey back into the bag and put his hands on his hips. “I’d like to save us some time. I’m not sure about the extent of your powers, and I’m not asking you to tell me. I’m certainly not going to tell you the extent of mine. But you should know that I have exceptionally good hearing.” He paused. “I can hear heartbeats.” He paused again. “So I know that you’re lying to me right now.”

Peter’s stomach flipped.

“So. I know that your last name is Parker, that you’re sixteen years old, that you’re from Queens, and that you’re on Midtown High’s decathlon team.”

“I’m not on the—”

He held up a stupid yellow wristband with _Midtown High Decathlon_ engraved in the rubber. Peter didn’t even know where he’d gotten that. Daredevil dropped it back in the bag with an expression on the lower half of his face that reminded Peter uncomfortably of Mr. Stark’s Disappointed Dad Face. “So about five seconds with a computer would be enough for me to discover the rest of your name, and some social media research could pin down your general location within a block unless your friends are far more discreet than the average high school junior.”

Peter shot webbing straight at Daredevil’s mask. He dodged at the last second—and the dodge strategically put him in front of the only door that led out of the building.

“Dude,” Peter said.

Daredevil raised his hands. “Calm down. I’m not the bad guy here, but you—”

Peter shot more webbing; Daredevil shoulder-rolled forward beneath it, so Peter ran straight for the wall, scrambling up until he could hover upside-down on the ceiling.

“Look, I could’ve found all of that just by tailing you, but I _didn’t_. You’re the one dragging key pieces to your identity around in a gym bag!”

“That jersey is _not_ a key piece to my identity,” Peter hissed indignantly. The decathlon wristband? Maybe. He edged along the ceiling towards the door. This whole thing was a terrible idea.

“What’s your plan?” Daredevil paced beneath him. “Run away and leave the bag? Like I need _more_ evidence to figure out who you are.”

“I get it, I shouldn’t have brought the bag! Lesson learned, sensei.” Peter had almost reached the door. He just needed one clear shot at his bag with the webbing and he’d be in the clear.

“You can’t leave without making sure I keep your secret,” Daredevil warned. “Unless you plan on following me later to make sure. But do you really want to bet your secret on your ability to tail me—when I _know_ you’re tailing me?”

Okay. This was, admittedly, not one of Peter’s better plans. It went against all of his instincts, because he was mostly sure that Daredevil was still a good guy, albeit a really rude good guy, but Peter was out of options.

“Sorry,” Peter whispered, and flung himself from the ceiling with his fist cocked to strike.

Daredevil sidestepped neatly and Peter crashed to the ground. Immediately, Daredevil was pinning him down with a knee buried in the small of his back. “Listen to me very carefully,” Daredevil began.

Not today, Satan. Peter shoved upwards, which _hurt_ but also threw Daredevil clear across the room to smash against the lockers. Peter winced sympathetically even as he webbed his gym bag and sprinted for the exit, but Daredevil flipped sideways— _cool_ —and landed in the doorway. Peter skidded to stop, but he had too much momentum and stumbled straight into Daredevil, who snatched his wrists and snapped the webshooters straight off.

“Dude, those were expensive!”

Daredevil just pushed him backwards into the training room and, to Peter’s shock, threw a punch straight at Peter’s face.

Like…Peter dodged it, no problem, but were they actually fighting for _real_ right now? “Hey, stop!”

“I thought you came here to train.” Daredevil threw two more strikes. Peter avoided one but the other caught him on the jaw, which immediately started throbbing.

He hit really hard for a guy that didn’t have the proportional strength of a spider. Mostly, he hit crazy fast, so fast Peter’s spidey sense could barely keep up. “This isn’t training!”

“How long have you been doing this?” Daredevil demanded.

“Getting beat up by a vigilante?” Peter flinched away from a flying fist just in time. “Like five minutes.”

Daredevil added a fancy kick to the mix that Peter ducked. “How long have you been Spiderman?”

A strike grazed the side of Peter’s head, but it wasn’t a solid hit. “Just over a year.”

“Who taught you?”

“No one, I just kind of—”

“Where do you train?”

“I don’t, I just—”

“Then how do you _do_ this?” And suddenly, it was like all bets were off. Daredevil advanced, and if Peter thought he was fast before, it was nothing compared to this new round. Now he was raining a volley of strikes down on Peter, aiming for targets all over his body. His face, his throat, his gut. At one point, Daredevil dropped to try to punch out Peter’s knee.

Several hits landed and all of those hurt, but most of them Peter dodged.

“Stop,” Daredevil ordered suddenly, breathing heavily.

Peter immediately froze, blinking as sweat dripped into his eyes under his mask.

“You’ve only been fighting for a year and no one trained you,” Daredevil recounted crisply, “but your reflexes are better than I’ve ever seen.”

“Ah. Yeah.” How to explain the spidey sense without sounding completely stupid? “I can kind of…sense…when things are a threat.”

“Sense how?” Daredevil demanded.

“I dunno.” He’d done some research into spiders, sure. Enough to know that it was normal for spiders to taste, smell, and arguably hear things from their, uh, legs. And be highly attuned to vibrations. That didn’t quite explain the full breadth of his spidey sense, but it got close. But it all sounded super weird anyway and Peter was definitely not about to try to explain it to the menacing vigilante currently staring him down.

“You have enhanced senses?”

“Sort of, ish,” Peter evaded.

“And you can, what, can predict things?”

“Anticipate,” Peter corrected. “Threats.”

Daredevil frowned. “How do you recognize threats? What if you’ve never encountered it before?”

“I can usually just tell if something’s really dangerous. But I don’t notice everything.”

Daredevil nodded sharply. “All right. Get ready.”

“Wait—”

Daredevil did not like waiting. He was already attacking again, forcing Peter to scramble backwards. Peter still managed to evaded the first two punches he could sense coming, but then Daredevil followed it up with a flip and a double-kick and Peter wasn’t fast enough to avoid the second kick, which caught him straight in the chest and knocked him onto his back.

“Ow.”

“Interesting,” Daredevil commented.

Giving himself a moment to catch his breath, Peter stared up at the other vigilante. “Are you… _experimenting_ on me?”

“You’re welcome,” Daredevil said bizarrely, then extended a hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-outs:  
> \- To WhyWhyNot, Me, and DDLover for suggesting Brett
> 
> HAPPY FEBRUARY, EVERYONE!


	5. Call Me Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, this chapter was ridiculously hard so I hope it works. Also, my own sense of smell is way too pathetic to justify the tracking scene. But at least I got to write about Matt thinking about flower petals.

Matt

Parker ignored the proffered hand, flipping up to his feet on his own and holding himself like he was about to catapult onto the ceiling again.

Matt tried to keep his excitement out of his voice. “So you never said if you have enhanced senses.”

Parker’s head turned like he was glancing around the room. Then he pointed. “If I squint, I can read that tiny tag thing over there.”

Very informative. “Nice. What about hearing?”

“I can hear some guy arguing with his mom on the phone outside.”

“Can you hear my heartbeat?”

Parker let out a startled laugh, backing up slightly. “Nope, and no offense, but I’m kinda glad.” Then, to Matt’s shock, he leapt straight up into the air so he could…crouch on the lockers? Okay. Matt tried not to react like he found that weird. “Isn’t this the part where you try to stop me from being Spiderman?” Parker asked suspiciously.

Ah. “I know you’re not going to stop.”

“I thought you said if you didn’t stop me, you’d be guilty of…whatever.”

“I would if you were actually under sixteen,” Matt admitted. “I didn’t think it was worth getting into the particulars at the time. Besides, as you rightly pointed out, I’m breaking the law anyway.” He paused. “And the goal of that particular law is to protect minors. I doubt that any attempt to force you to stop is actually the best way to protect you.”

“Why not?” Parker sounded still suspicious, but also genuinely confused.

Matt sighed, then sat down on the bench and patted the space beside him, though he wasn’t surprised when Parker held his position on top of the lockers. “Enough people have tried to make me stop.”

“Why?” Parker blurted out. “I mean…you’re scary good at all of this.”

“You have friends, Spiderman? Family? You don’t have to tell me who,” he continued, “but are they present in your life?”

“Yeah,” Parker admitted carefully.

“Do they know what you do?”

“Some of them. My best friend mostly thinks it’s really cool.”

“My best friend concluded that I’d been lying to him and taking advantage of him for the duration of our friendship.” Getting back up again, Matt retrieved both their water bottles from his bag. “We worked together, but that fell apart. Twice.” He filled up Parker’s bottle first at the water fountain. “Well, the truth is, the second time was almost entirely my fault.”

Parker winced.

It suddenly struck him: all the mistakes Parker could so easily make if he didn’t know better, or even if he _did_ know better but didn’t have someone to help him avoid them. “How do you prioritize between school and friends during the day and Spiderman?”

“What, like in one of those planning journals?”

“You’re trying to live two lives at once. Don’t sacrifice your normal life just to be Spiderman.” Matt hesitated. “I can…I can try to help you with that, if you like. Not that I’m _great_ at it.”

Honestly, what would be ideal would be to introduce Parker and Foggy—including telling Parker exactly who Foggy was in relation to Daredevil. Foggy could explain, far better than Matt, what it was like to live on one side of the line while a friend stepped back and forth over it.

But maybe Matt was a coward because he wasn’t ready for that.

Nevertheless, he walked back to his own bag and felt around in an interior pocket where he thought he’d left a business card or two at some point. Sure enough, he felt the small braille bumps over the card, distinguishing it from any of the other random cards he’d collected over the years. “Here.” He flicked the card at Parker, who caught it with a string of web. “I know a couple of good defense lawyers here in Hell’s Kitchen. If you ever run into any legal trouble, they’ll help you.”

Parker turned the card over in his hands. “Has that happened to you?”

Matt handed him his water bottle. “No.”

“Oh, good. I mean, if _you_ haven’t run into trouble, I probably won’t.”

Matt raised his eyebrows under his mask. “You think?”

“C’mon,” Parker scoffed. “Daredevil’s always beating up cops. They don’t need an excuse to arrest you. Spiderman, though? Spiderman and the cops are way cool.”

“I only fight dishonest cops,” Matt insisted. “And vigilantism is still illegal,” he added, but he felt like a broken and hypocritical record at this point. “The point is, _if_ you need help, the lawyers on that card are good people.” One of them more than other, but that was irrelevant. “Let me see your phone.”

“So you can look at all my contacts and hold my parents over my head in some weird virtual hostage situation? I don’t think so.”

Matt was relieved on several levels: relieved that Parker was finally showing a sense of caution and especially relieved that Parker apparently had a decent relationship with not just one but _two_ parents. Excellent. He got out his burner and tossed it at Parker. “Put your number in the first spot and text yourself.”

“Yessir,” Parker muttered. A moment later, a different phone made a series of beeping sounds that Matt recognized vaguely from…Star Wars? R2-D2 or something?

“Good.” Matt held out his hand, smirking when Parker cocked his arm to throw it, then seemed to think better of it and settled for placing it meekly in Matt’s palm. “Same time next week?”

“Yeah—wait, no. I have school stuff.”

Matt felt strangely disappointed. “Good choice.”

“But maybe…” Parker hesitated. “If you’re out patrolling or something, I could help you, sometime?”

 

Maggie

She stood outside the church after Monday’s evening mass, leaning on one of the spiky black fence posts and listening to the birds insisting that spring had come. It certainly hadn’t, but their fervent expectancy for something as-yet unseen was inspirational. The sun would dawn every morning and spring would follow every winter and hope would not disappoint.

And there was Matthew—tall and handsome as ever, and wearing a slightly-rumpled suit that indicated he’d come from a long day of work. He was swinging his cane in a casual arc as he strolled towards her, almost unrecognizable compared to the broken vigilante she’d nursed back to health. If all she’d ever known of her son was that broken vigilante, it would have been more than she deserved and she would have been beyond thankful. But this? This lawyer with friends and clients and a dog that he was successfully caring for? This was scandalous grace.

She kept all of those thoughts firmly locked away in her heart as she greeted him on the sidewalk. “It’s good to see you again.”

“I can’t say the same.”

A joke, but it hurt. The only reason he didn’t have a mental picture to work with was because she’d been too great a coward while he’d still had sight. This, too, she kept locked away. “Come to help?”

“It’s my favorite thing.”

She led him into the church, though he still paused at the threshold to cock his head, hunting for any sign of danger that he might have missed while approaching. It made her furious with Dex for turning the church from a place of safety into a potential trap.

“No problems?” she asked gently.

He jumped guiltily. “Sorry. Everything’s fine.”

“Come on, then.” She led him not down to the basement but into the kitchen at the back. “Now, I assume you’re good at making sandwiches.”

“Is that what you’ve enlisted me for?”

“We have a zoo trip coming up and we thought we’d take some extra students from one of the alternative schools for students with behavioral difficulties. I want these kids to have the best possible sandwiches and assumed your abilities would come in handy.”

“And here I thought you just wanted to spend time with me.”

She flicked him lightly on the arm. “I thought you’d enjoy it. I find making sandwiches to be one of the most calming experiences there is.”

“Have you ever been to a beach?” he asked seriously, but he started on the job all the same, dividing up slices of bread and falling into a rhythm of spreading peanut butter and jelly in what appeared to be a very precise ratio. “Are you still meeting with Dex?”

“Yes.” She frowned at the ham and cheese she was assembling. “But he needs an actual psychologist.”

“He doesn’t want one.”

“And what if I make things worse?” She was so entirely underqualified that it was a certainty.

“You don’t have to keep meeting with him,” Matthew pointed out quietly.

No, but she wasn’t sure she could forgive herself if she turned her back on another person who needed her help. “What about you? How are things?” She knew he’d started seeing a therapist, but she also knew better than to ask about it directly.

It was a broad question, but his answer was still such a surprise that she almost dropped her packet of cheese. “Karen wants to have a kid.”

She pushed a tsunami of thoughts that she hoped were not revealed in any way by her body language into the back of her mind. “Does she?”

“With me,” Matthew clarified.

“Well, I assumed as much. What do you think?”

“I’m still…figuring that out.”

And he wanted her help, or he wouldn’t have brought it up like this. “Are you worried, or uninterested?”

“Not uninterested,” he said quickly.

“Why are you worried?”

“I never even said I was,” he protested.

“You didn’t have to.”

He pressed his lips together at that and didn’t immediately reply, as if thinking through the best way to respond—which meant that whatever he was about to say might not be a true reflection of what he was thinking. “What if…what if we have a kid, and something happens? What if I can’t be there?”

How did he expect her to help if he wouldn’t be honest? She did her best with what he gave her. “Honey, if you’re worried about Daredevil, you can work around that. Get armor again, or go out less, or get a partner like that Stone person.”

From his expression, she guessed that none of that would solve the real problem, probably because he hadn’t yet admitted the real problem. She wondered what specific concern could both drive him to seek her advice to deal with it while leaving him wary of actually revealing it.

Apparently focusing very hard on spreading peanut butter, he tried again. “What if…something happens to Karen? What if she can’t be there?”

Maggie studied him. “Do you think that’s likely?”

“I can’t figure out if she’s a magnet for danger or if danger is a magnet for her.”

Maggie couldn’t argue with that. “Having a family is always a risk. At some point, you and Karen just have to decide if it’s worth it.”

He chewed on his lip. “I just don’t want any kid of mine to…to grow up the way that I grew up.”

Oh, Matthew. “Your father loved you. At the end of the day, every parent faces the fear that something might take them from their child.”

He took a deep breath. “You left.”

The room chilled.

“I know you were struggling,” he said cautiously, “but you weren’t _taken_. You left.”

She stifled the pain. This was not about her. “I did,” she admitted. “Do you really think Karen would leave you?”

He absently flexed his hand, drawing her attention to his ever-bloody knuckles, and didn’t answer.

Could he not see how loved he truly was? “Why would she leave you?”

He set the peanut butter knife on a paper towel. “Why wouldn’t she? These are done, by the way.”

 

Matt

He shouldn’t have said any of that to Maggie. Or he should’ve at least apologized. Instead, Matt was waiting outside the Valliers’ house, hoping selfishly that dinner with Ella and her parents would distract him from the guilt. The house smelled like stir fry, colored pencils, and some kind of room spray that was probably supposed to smell like coconut.

This was the third meal they’d fed him. It was getting ridiculous.

He should do something for them.

Rapid footsteps down the hall warned him to brace himself for collision, but Ella skidded to a stop as soon as the door was open and she got a glimpse of him. “Matt, your face!”

He grimaced, felt the bruising shift under his left eye. By-product of some of those less-than-friendly conversations.

Before he knew what was happening, she’d grabbed his hand and pulled him the rest of the way into the house, past Maeva setting the table to find Micah standing over the stove. “Daddy, Matt has sad colors again!”

Micah apparently knew what sad colors were, because he took this exclamation seriously. “Good observation, Ella.”

“You said you were gonna talk to him!”

Micah seemed intently focused on the stir fry. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

Ella whirled on Matt. “You’re supposed to be more _careful_.”

“I am being careful,” Matt told her, trying to figure out if this was an ambush. Even if Micah wanted to stay out of it, but Ella was clearly trying to recruit him to her side. “There’re just some really bad people out there, and they’re hurting other people.”

“Are you stopping them?” Before he could answer, she’d gotten distracted. “I have to show you my list!”

“What list?”

“Finally,” Maeva said dryly, popping in from the dining room to collect more silverware. “We’ve been trying to get her to show us that list since she started making it.”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Ella said seriously, “but you wouldn’t understand.” She pulled Matt back out into the hallway where she dug her backpack out of some kind of fancy storage bin. Flattening a piece of paper against the wall, she took hold of Matt’s hand to position his finger over a name etched into the page. “This is Tommy. He hit Jake on the nose once because Jake won a prize and Tommy didn’t.” She moved his finger to another scribble. “This is Bridget. She makes fun of Huyen because she has an accent.” She moved on to a pair of names. “Andrew and Manuel make fun of Levi ’cause he has two dads, and Mara is just mean to everyone.”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “Why do you have these people written down?”

“So I can stop them,” she said simply.

He jaw dropped. “Ella, is this…is this a hit list?”

“What’s a hit list?”

That was a stupendous question for her parents. “I mean, what are you planning on doing to stop them?”

She shrugged. “Whatever I have to, I guess. Oh, I almost forgot.” Grabbing a pencil, she started scratching another word onto the paper. “I have to add Jeffery ’cause he called the teacher a bad word and she didn’t even hear it so he didn’t get in trouble.”

At least she had standards. Matt wanted to be proud of her, he really did. But he knew a hit list when he felt one.

She stuffed the paper into her backpack again. “Can I show you something else?” she whispered.

“Why are we whispering?” he whispered back.

“Because it’s an extra big secret.”

“Oh.” Turning his head down the hallway, he wished he could see Micah’s expression, or Maeva’s. From this angle, either one of them would’ve still been in his line of sight; if he could see, they could give him a sign about whether they were okay with this. He remembered adults doing that when he was a kid, communicating in secret nods and expressions.

“Take your time,” Maeva called, and Micah banged some dishes together more loudly than he probably needed to.

Matt assumed that was a green light, but there were still some ingrained habits he couldn’t ignore. “Ella, I can’t promise that I’ll keep whatever you tell me a secret. If it’s something that might hurt you or someone else—”

“I got sad colors again,” she interrupted. She moved his hand to the underside of her forearm so he could feel the bruising. A defensive injury. “Mommy and Daddy haven’t seen it yet. But I didn’t get hurt as bad as before. I think I’m getting better.”

Better? “What happened?”

“It was Tommy. He hit me after he hit Jake.”

Her arm was so _small_. And inflamed. “Why was he trying to hit you?”

Her voice hardened. “I got in between them and tried to make them stop.”

Okay. This was…he was so proud of her, but also _what_ , _no_. “Why does this have to be a secret?”

“Because I was talking to Daddy about my old dad and how he used to give me sad colors. Bruises,” she corrected herself. “Daddy calls them bruises. Like on your face.” She touched his cheek, so gently he could barely feel it. “Daddy got really upset when I told him.” Then she must’ve seen something in Matt’s expression because she rushed to add, “Not _scary_ upset. Just upset.”

“Because he doesn’t want you to get hurt.”

She seemed to brace herself; he heard the soft sound of her teeth chewing on her lower lip. “Matt, I know I’m supposed to stop fighting the other kids. It makes you and Daddy and the teachers all upset. But some of them are just so _mean_ and no one else is doing anything to fix it.” Her voice hardened. “I don’t _want_ to stop.”

Matt let out a slow breath. “Thank you for telling me, but you should definitely tell your—”

“They won’t understand,” she interrupted. “No one understands but _you_.”

Oh—great—no. It felt a lot like running away when he suggested they go eat, but it also felt like a smarter decision than fumbling his way through this conversation on his own.

If Ella was disappointed with his response, she didn’t show it. Nor did she say anything else about sad colors or her list once they joined her parents at the table. Instead, she chattered about a new friend and a new book she was reading and joined Maeva in making fun of Micah for not adding enough garlic. Micah bore their insults gracefully and it wasn’t until Matt was helping with dishes—they’d tried to tell him not to worry about it until he’d said that he wanted to set a good example for Ella—that Micah admitted that he’d thought Matt wouldn’t appreciate as much garlic.

“I don’t know how you manage to eat anything with your senses, actually, but I thought you might appreciate something milder than what we’re used to.”

Matt needed to stop that line of thinking immediately. “I was trained to adjust. I can eat normally.”

“Trained?” Micah echoed curiously.

He changed the subject. “Listen, I don’t want to break Ella’s trust, but you should know that she’s…been fighting.”

Setting the dishes aside for the moment, Micah turned to Matt with his arms folded across his chest. He raised his voice slightly. “Maeva, come in here a moment?”

Matt heard Maeva giving Ella instructions on how to set up some kind of game in the living room. Once Ella was distracted, Maeva ducked into the kitchen. “Yes?”

“Ella’s trying to fight bullies at school.” Matt cleared his throat. “This is my fault. I’ve tried to explain the, uh, vigilante stuff, and clearly I’ve done a horrible job at it. I can try again, or you could explain it, or…” He clenched his jaw. “If you’d rather I not be around her, I completely underst—”

“This is not your fault,” Maeva interrupted tiredly. “We’ve spoken with the people at Everett’s. She was instigating fights even before she was kidnapped.”

“Which means,” Micah went on, “that she was picking fights long before she knew that you do the same.”

But they couldn’t deny that he normalized the behavior. “She still—”

“We’ll _all_ talk to her,” Micah said firmly. “Maeva and I certainly will, and her therapist, and you can too, if you want.”

They should not trust him to talk with her, not about this. But he was strangely relieved that they did. “I’ll fix this,” he promised.

Maeva touched his arm. “Matt. She’s seven, and she hasn’t exactly had a smooth childhood. This might be something she struggles with for a while.”

He knew. He knew all too well.

“Which means,” she persisted, “that if this behavior continues, it’s not necessarily because of you. Understand?”

The guilt was still there, but his relief was even stronger. He risked a single nod that felt like atonement.

 

That night, he met up for the second time with Peter Parker, also known as Spiderman. Matt had taken only a few minutes to discover Spiderman’s identity, though he currently thought it best not to let Peter know he knew.

Matt also thought it best not to leave Peter unsupervised if he could help it, so he’d asked Peter for purely investigative help (Matt made sure he was alone when he needed to have any less-than-friendly conversations), but so far the night had led to nothing but dead ends.

Which was the new normal. Matt’s failure to track down the drug was all the more frustrating because he could smell it _everywhere_. That was exactly the problem: its scent was so intense that he couldn’t identify differences between one scent trail and another, couldn’t tell if one was more concentrated or less stale. And he was running out of excuses to tell Foggy why he hadn’t solved this by now.

“We’ll find it,” Peter insisted, bouncing a ball of webbing off the ground in front of him as they skulked through allies.

 “My not-a-vigilante friend is questioning my capabilities,” Matt complained. It was a calculated complaint, designed to include a strategic amount of vulnerability to foster trust and also offered in the hope that mentioning Foggy enough would cause him and Peter to spontaneously meet each other.

“Tell him they’re using ozone,” Peter suggested, bouncing his webbing harder.

The ball bounced into a dumpster, causing a dull ringing sound, and Matt quickly confiscated it, sticking it in his pocket. “Ozone?”

“Ozone reacts to the particulates in the air.” To Matt’s dismay, Peter shot another ball of webbing, although this one just bounced off a stack of cardboard. “Its third oxygen molecule breaks off and attaches to other molecules and the oxidation destroys them, so it’s really good at getting rid of bad scents.”

Matt blinked. “But ozone also has a distinct smell.”

“But its half-life is like thirty minutes,” Peter pointed out. “Then everything goes back to normal.”

“Oh.” He wouldn’t even be able to remember all of that to tell Foggy, but he appreciated the effort. He also—Matt cocked his head as he noticed a scent that he certainly had not been looking for.

Stone? The trace was at least a day old. So Stone was back and hadn’t bothered to let Matt know. Which…why should he?

But it would’ve been nice.

Matt shook his head to clear it and, unfortunately, Peter noticed. “What’s wrong?”

Wonderful time for him to actually be observant. “Nothing,” Matt said quickly.

“Does someone need help?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Peter’s web-ball knocked over a lamp someone had left out with the trash. The bulb shattered. Matt snatched the ball out of the air on its ricochet and stuck it in his other pocket. He was running out of pockets. “Cut it out.”

Peter clasped his hands innocently behind his back. “Sorry. I just concentrate better when I’m doing something, you know? And I’ve never had to rely on just my sense of smell like this, so maybe that’s why we’re not making much progress with—” He cut himself off with a gasp. “Wait! We’re doing this wrong!”

“Smelling things wrong?” Matt asked doubtfully.

“Tracking it wrong!” Peter stopped walking and spoke faster. “Look, we’re going in circles because devil’s hell is everywhere, so tracking it by scent doesn’t narrow anything down.”

Well, Matt didn’t think tracking it by taste was a spectacular idea, but he waited to see what else the kid could come up with.

“We need to isolate a variable!”

Matt knew what all those words meant, but not in this context. He got the impression that Peter was looking at him expectantly, so he just shrugged.

That was the only signal Peter needed to expound on his idea. “There’s devil’s hell itself, obviously, but since we can’t figure out where it’s more or less concentrated, you’ve gotta use a different variable to get to the source. Aren’t you, like, super enhanced? So look for different scents that are normally paired with it and focus on those instead. We could figure out which cars they’re using or something and track it back to the people who’re responsible.”

Usually, the associated scents Peter was referring to were something Matt noticed automatically. But devil’s hell was overpowering…and smelled distractingly good, although that didn’t seem to bother Peter, which was both a relief and an embarrassment. Matt hadn’t even realized he wasn’t tracking the associated scents until now that Peter pointed it out. Now he sniffed shallowly a couple of times, confirming his familiarity with devil’s hell and pinning down exactly where it began and ended. Then he hunted for anything connected to it, but separate.

“Is it working?” Peter asked eagerly.

“Try for yourself,” Matt murmured absently.

“But my nose isn’t that good.”

“It’s not just enhanced senses. It’s focus.”

“Um…okay, but I mean, I’ve _been_ focusing this whole time, so…”

All right. Teaching moment. Trying very hard not to think about Stick and ice cream, Matt tilted his head to the side. “Concentrate on devil’s hell and make sure you can identify it not just intellectually but by what it makes you feel.” For all that Stick disparaged emotions, he’d also recognized the utility of harnessing the primal power of emotions. The sense of smell in particular was so connected to memory and emotion that Matt learned long ago that he could track a scent far more precisely by relying on his gut reaction over conscious inspection. Devil’s hell, for instance, struck Matt as almost sensual—though he was not planning on sharing that information with Peter.

There was the quiet sound of Peter inhaling. He hesitated. “Scared.”

Matt frowned, switching his attention from the scent to the teenager standing beside him. “If you’re thinking about what the drug does, you’re thinking too much. Focus on only what the smell makes you feel.”

Peter shook his head. “Still creeps me out. Maybe because of the spidey sense?”

Matt hadn’t thought of that. “Well, it smells pretty good to me, so that might be a good thing. You find anything that feels better and I’ll find anything that’s more negative.”

Peter fell silent for a moment, but it barely lasted a minute. “I dunno, it’s all pretty—”

“Stop talking. Focus.” Beneath devil’s hell there was gunpowder, blood, sweat, tobacco, car exhaust. Not pleasant scents, but not distinct enough to be useful.

A siren wailed nearby. Peter flinched into Matt. “Sorry!” He cleared his throat. “I’m good. We’re good.”

Keeping his eyes closed, Matt barely smiled. “It’s harder to control your other senses when you’re focusing so much on just one. Let go of the distraction.” He didn’t pay attention to Peter’s answering mumble (something about Yoda?), instead trying to force his concentration still further. There was something else, something that made his stomach tighten with unease.

He frowned. This other scent was actually nice—sweet and floral, like a dewdrops on flower petals. So why did it make him so anxious?

Peter sighed. “I don’t know, Mr. Daredevil. I’m not getting any happy vibes out of any of this, if that’s what you were hoping for.”

“Not a problem,” Matt answered slowly. “I think I found something.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ALMOST FORGOT. Shout-out to Eccho for wanting Ella as a vigilante. There's more coming. ;)


	6. Your Truth

Matt

“What is it?” Peter demanded.

“Perfume. Expensive.” His lip curled. “Plenty of people could wear it, but I know for a fact that it’s a favorite of Mrs. Vanessa Fisk.” He’d smelled it all through the Presidential Hotel, smelled it when he’d shielded her from Dex.

There was a faint whirring sound which Matt was coming to associate with Peter’s surprise. Somehow. Peter had tried once to explain the science of his suit, but while Matt was highly interested in its combat and reconnaissance capabilities, he definitely did not care about its ability to mimic facial expressions. “You think she’s behind devil’s hell? So we’re gonna go talk to her, right? Or, you know…” Peter mimed a one-two punch combination (he really needed to work on using his lower body with upper body strikes). “Whatever it takes.”

“Absolutely not.” Matt jumped onto the nearest dumpster, jumped again onto the nearest fire escape, and pulled himself up onto the roof of an apartment building. “I’ll see you for training on Friday.”

Peter swung onto the roof beside him with considerably more grace. “We’re not investigating?”

Well, Matt hadn’t expected it to be that easy. “It’s Fisk’s wife.”

“So? Fisk is in jail. She should be there with him.”

Matt cleared his throat. “You, uh, remember what I told you about keeping your identity a secret?”

“Do I remember when you snooped through my gym bag, yelled at me, and tried to beat me up? Nope. Forgot all about that.”

Matt’s heart dropped into his stomach. He hadn’t _yelled_ , per se, but he was certainly guilty of the other accusations. Particularly of the latter. Foggy’s voice was ringing in his ears, demanding that Matt give a name to what Stick had done to him under the guise of _training_.

Assault. Battery. Child abuse.

“Um,” Peter said. “You okay? I was joking. It wasn’t that bad and I definitely got the lesson, so…”

Matt cleared his throat, resolving to deal with this later. Not never, but much later. “Fisk learned my identity. He used it against not only me but the people in my life that I care about. We made a deal: he would stay away from my friends, and I would stay away from his wife.”

“And the deal didn’t deal leave room for going after Vanessa if she turns out to be super evil? No offense, but that’s a terrible deal.”

“It worked until now,” Matt said testily.

Peter wisely did not point out that the deal had worked for less than a year. “But _I_ didn’t make any promises.” This was exactly what Matt was afraid of. “So I guess I’ll just have a chat with her. Would it be rude to show up without a wedding card, or—you’re shaking your head.” He folded his arms. “If you try to tell me this is too dangerous—”

“This is _Fisk_ we’re talking about. If you so much as make Vanessa _nervous_ , he will not hesitate to ruin your life and the lives of everyone you care about, not to mention all the innocent people who’ll get caught in the crossfire. I’m telling you, you’re not ready for this fight.” He clenched his fist at his side. “I wasn’t.”

“So we’re just gonna let her keep spreading devil’s hell all through New York?”

“We will _investigate_. If we can find any evidence against her, we can take her down within the confines of the law.”

Peter snorted. “You know how that sounds, right? Coming from Daredevil?”

“If you want to help, you can come with me to look around. But you don’t get to touch her. Understood?”

“Understood,” Peter said swiftly. Then his breathing shifted. “But if we get there and she’s, like, murdering someone—that’s an exception, right?”

“That’s _my_ exception,” Matt snapped. “If it comes to it, I’ll do whatever is necessary and I’ll deal with the fallout.”

“Fine.” His heartbeat screamed that he was lying.

Matt flashed a grim smile. “Sorry, Peter. You’re done.”

Peter stiffened at the sound of his first name. “What?”

“Peter Parker,” he said quietly. “Only child. You’re frequently seen with a friend, Ned, and occasionally a girl named Michelle. You live with your aunt. You…” Matt hesitated for less than a second. “Your uncle was killed and your parents are also dead. I’m sorry.”

Peter was frozen, heart racing.

Once Matt figured out Peter’s name, he’d asked Karen to dig deeper and she had exceeded expectations. But that was a drop in the bucket compared to what Fisk would discover. “I found that out in three days. What do you think Fisk will learn about you if you give him a month and a reason to look?”

Peter didn’t answer.

“If you lay a finger on Vanessa, all of Fisk’s attention will be on Spiderman. It took him about three years to figure out who I am, and not only am I far better at keeping secrets than you—as evidenced by your _gym bag_ —I also have an infinitely better alibi.”

Whatever else Peter was feeling right now, he put aside to deal with the problem at hand. He lifted his chin. “But she’s hurting people.”

“We’ll investigate,” Matt repeated clearly. “If we find any evidence, we’ll alert the police. And if anyone is in immediate danger, _I will deal with it_. Are we clear, Peter?”

His answer was a whisper. “Yes.”

There was no lie in his heartbeat.

Matt wrestled away a stab of guilt. “Meet me back here tomorrow.”

“But—”

“I was serious about it being a school night.” Before he could think better of it, Matt dropped a hand on Peter’s shoulder. He pulled it back just as quickly.

 

The next day, things weren’t off to a particularly productive start at the office. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. Foggy was being plenty productive. But Karen had whispered an idea to Matt, and he couldn’t think of a reason _not_ to play along.

“Hey, Matt,” Foggy said suddenly, standing in the doorway of his office. “Could you pass me the—” He ducked as Karen flicked a paperclip expertly at his face. The ninth one this morning. “What gives?” he finally demanded.

“Kee going,” she said calmly, but she was holding yet another paperclip already.

“I’m serious, guys!”

Matt scooted on his rolling chair until he was in his doorway, holding a paperclip loosely in his left hand where Foggy couldn’t see. “Serious about what, Fogs?”

“About the freaking paperclips! For the—” He ducked as Matt shot another paperclip directly at his nose. “At least use the wall for target practice so I can concentrate. Of the three of us, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who’s actually gotten any work done since—” He broke off to dodge another tiny projectile. “What did I do to either of you?”

“Call it,” Karen announced, holding up a notebook.

Matt sprang out of his chair. “What’ve we got?”

She studied the notebook. “ _I like toast to figure out it could pass for work_.” She looked up. “I think we got better towards the end.”

“You’re the one who tried to use _toast_ ,” Matt reminded her disapprovingly.

She huffed in exasperation.

Foggy snatched the notebook away. “What are you even doing?”

Snatching it back, she snapped it closed. “We’re building a story out of random words you say by tagging them with paperclips.”

Foggy seemed to process this for a moment. “But why.”

Matt frowned. “I…don’t think there’s really an explanation.”

“Instinct,” she agreed gravely. “We can’t help it.”

“If you’re bored, you should go on a coffee run,” Foggy said pointedly.

“Not bored,” Matt argued, offended. “It’s practice.”

“For what, the paperclip war?”

“Bonding,” Karen offered.

“At my expense,” Foggy groused, retreating into his office. “If your game needs me to talk, I’m not saying anything else for the rest of the day. See how you feel without my rapier wit to keep this office engaging.”

Matt snorted. “Is that supposed to be a threat?”

“We made him feel left out,” Karen reproached.

He nudged her with his shoulder. “It was your idea; you should apologize.”

“You were an accessory. We should apologize together.”

At that moment, Matt’s phone rang where he’d left it on his desk. He grinned triumphantly. “Duty calls. Good luck with Foggy.” He was focused enough on answering that he didn’t realize Karen had thrown a paperclip at him until it bounced off the frame of his glasses, eliciting an unprofessional yelp.

“Matt?” Micah’s voice was confused.

He aimed a glare in Karen’s direction. “Hi, yes, sorry. What can I do for you? Is everything all right?”

“I just had a question. A couple of questions, maybe. About what you do.”

It was clear from his voice that he wasn’t asking about legal advice. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Matt closed his door. “What kind of questions?”

“Part of what you know is self-defense, isn’t it? It isn’t solely how to, ah, incapacitate.”

Well, incapacitation was arguably a crucial part of self-defense. “Yes?” Matt agreed uncertainly.

“Maeva and I were talking. It’s clear that Ella has been exposed to enough violence at this point that it’s no longer as shocking or scary as it probably should be. And since she already had a tendency to get into fights even before she knew about your, uh, proclivities…”

Matt raised his eyebrows. _Proclivities._

“We assume that there’s more to this than a seven-year-old's misunderstanding of, you know, Daredevil. This isn’t a problem that will just go away.” He sighed. “Obviously, we don’t want her to fight as an expression of frustration, but our understanding is that, since meeting you, her inclination towards fighting has actually become more focused on protecting the people around her. Which, in principle, we want to encourage.”

Matt was reasonably sure he knew where this was going, but he kept silent for now.

“If she’s this likely to get herself into trouble, we’d rather she know what to do. And frankly, her therapist thought that if she really understood how to fight and the kind of damage a well-trained fighter can do, she might be more…thoughtful, I guess. But from our research, we also understand that a lot of martial arts are geared less towards keeping students alive in life-threatening situations and more towards…exercise and gymnastics.”

“I wouldn’t really know.”

“Oh. Because the reason I called was to know if you could recommend any studios, or even any particular styles. Did you…did you not learn at a studio?”

“It was…more of a private tutoring situation.”

There was a pause. Matt enjoyed a moment of quiet panic at the realization that a private tutor probably didn’t fit with what he’d told Micah about growing up at St. Agnes all his life. But Micah didn’t call him on the discrepancy. “And you don’t know a particular style that might be better than the others?”

“Well, my style isn’t very…common. It’s a pretty complicated mix, I think. Better for adapting to face different kinds of enemies.”

“Of course, that makes sense.” Micah suddenly spoke a bit faster. “That’s actually really impressive, by the way. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you that.”

Did this conversation have a point anymore? “Uh, thank you.”

“Okay, well, we’ll keep researching and see what we can come up with. Wait—what if…” There was a rustling sound as if Micah was shifting the phone to his other ear. “What if, in the meantime, she learned some things from you?”

Honestly, that was where Matt had originally expected the conversation to go, which was nice because he’d had plenty of time to think of the most respectful way to respond. “That’s a horrible idea.”

Pause. “Why do you say that?”

“Where to start?” Matt muttered.

He sighed again. “I think you could emphasize for her, better than most, how dangerous all of this is. And I think she’d take the lessons far more seriously with you than with anyone else. Again, it wouldn’t be long-term and Maeva and I would supply whatever she might need. You could set whatever schedule works for you and we’d be more than willing to pay you for your time.”

“What? You don’t need to pay me.”

“Does that mean you agree?”

“No!” Matt tipped his head back in frustration. “Sorry. I just…” How was he supposed to explain that not only did he not know the first thing about what regular people learned in classes, but he was also—there was also—all he knew how to do was how to be like Stick.

“I didn’t mean to pressure you,” Micah said, which Matt found doubtful. “If you don’t want to do it, I understand.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Matt said before he could stop himself. He wanted Micah to know that he loved the idea of spending more time with Ella and helping her deal with what she was going through. But he couldn’t risk _this_. And there was no way to explain how easily it could end in disaster. Not without revealing more of what his own training had been like or, worse, admitting his fear that he would accidentally hurt her. And if Micah knew Matt was worried about that, he could reasonably rethink letting Matt around Ella at all. “It’s just…”

“The thing is, all the other classes are naturally focused on self-defense. And I desperately want Ella to be able to defend herself, but _she_ is much more interested in defending others. She looks up to you so much—if you explained when and how that kind of thing is appropriate, I think she would actually listen.” Micah’s voice softened. “Is there anything we can do to make this work?”

Matt gritted his teeth. He wished he could trust himself to agree. He was training Peter, kind of, but Matt knew he’d been out of line the first time. That was bad enough, even though Peter was a sixteen-year-old with disproportionate strength and senses that were at least slightly enhanced, plus the spider sense thing over which Matt harbored intense jealousy.

“It would be nice,” Micah said slowly, “to know why, specifically, you think this is such a horrible idea. Then maybe we could work something out.”

Matt closed his eyes. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” Micah said immediately.

He bit the inside of his cheek. “Are you sure you should?”

Micah was silent for a moment, figuring out what Matt wasn’t saying. “Yes. Because, in all the time you’ve known her, you’ve never laid a hand on her. Not like that. I know because I see how you treat her now and because I see how she responds to you. She’s seen what you can do—more than I have, actually—and yet I firmly believe that if I ever even suggested that you could turn those skills against her, she would never speak to me again.”

Oh. Huh.

“So yes,” Micah went on more softly. “We all trust you.”

 

“That’s some really impressive graffiti over there, don’t you think? Like, it captures the emotion so much more than you’d expect. I think that’s why they sprayed it on the dumpster. It’s supposed to be ironic, probably. Like—Mr. Daredevil, are you okay?”

Matt breathed in slowly through his nose. The mind controlled the body, so the mind controlled the anxious signals he was putting out, which Peter was picking up on as they slunk over the rooftops towards Vanessa’s gallery. “Good attentiveness,” he said reluctantly, since Peter really deserved some kind of affirmation for finally exercising his observance. “But I’m fine.”

“I thought you were complimenting me for realizing you’re not okay.”

See, the polite thing would’ve been to let it go. “I’m just tense.”

“Sure,” Peter agreed easily, “but why are you tense?”

He sighed, wondering why Stone hadn’t shown himself by this point. “Someone is following us.”

“Wait, what?” Peter whirled around.

“For future reference, when I tell you someone is following us, your response should _not_ be to spin around. You won’t be able to see him anyway.”

“Is it a bad guy?”

“Not usually. But I don’t want him involved with this.”

“I find that vague and unconvincing.”

He used that particular tone that Matt recognized meant Peter was quoting something. “Yeah, well, I’m not trying to convince you, I just expect you to follow my direction.”

To his relief, Peter didn’t argue. Nor did he spin around again. But he stopped chattering so much. Matt wasn’t sure if he was glad or if he missed the constant stream of commentary.

He made them stop one building away from the art gallery. (Stone stopped two buildings behind them.) A rumbling engine suggested there was a large truck waiting along the street adjacent to the gallery, and there was a collection of heartbeats ahead. The smell of guns hung heavily in the air beneath the far stronger aroma of devil’s hell. “She’s increased security,” he murmured. “How many is your read?”

“Six? Seven?”

Seven. “Armed?” he prompted.

“Rifles. Wanna know what kind?” Before Matt could answer, Peter was whispering, as if to himself, “Karen, what kind of guns are we looking at?”

“DPMS Panther Oracle,” a filtered female voice answered, and Matt almost jumped out of his skin. “AR-15 semi-automatic rifles with suppressors.”

“Turn that off,” Matt hissed.

“You’re the only other person who can hear it,” Peter hissed back. “Karen is _helpful_.”

Matt rolled his eyes behind his mask. “Let’s move.” They needed to get closer, ideally within the gallery itself, if they wanted to find anything incriminating.

They landed on the roof, Peter a second after Matt. The presence of guards complicated Matt’s original plan of simply breaking through a window. But there was a door to the roof. Matt wondered if teaching Peter to pick locks was more likely to save his life or contribute to his already-terrible school-superheroing balance.

Before he could reach a conclusion, they were noticed. The guard who’d spotted them didn’t react except in his heartrate, but that was enough. Matt was pleased when Peter stiffened slightly. “I think they saw us.”

“Get off the roof. We can’t afford a fight here, not with her guards.”

“Okay, but what about with her runners? Loaded up with the drug and about to send more drugs all throughout Hell’s Kitchen and maybe Queens, too?”

“Too close to Vanessa,” Matt insisted, giving Peter a push to the edge of the roof while the guards fanned out beneath them.

Peter’s feet shifted as he resisted, leaning back against Matt just enough to remind him that Peter had him beat by sheer strength. “If that shipment gets out, people will be _hurt_.”

As if on cue, something flew through the air and, seconds later, the smell of blood spiced the night as Stone’s knife sank into the guard’s throat. The guard’s gun hit the ground before his body.

Peter sprang backwards, tripped off the edge of the roof, and flipped onto the ground. He stuck the landing, Matt could give him that much, but now the guards were yelling, flashlights switching on to send beams of heat crisscrossing. Electricity flicked on in the neighboring buildings, innocent civilians waking up.

This was exactly what they needed to _avoid._ Matt threw one of his clubs at the nearest guard. The gun let out a burst of fire as the man’s finger spasmed against the trigger. Glass shattered across the street, but the guard fell unconscious. Neighbors on all sides were calling the cops.

Peter leapt up onto the side of the gallery’s outer wall, sticking to the surface and crawling to intercept a guard sprinting around the back corner. He shot webbing straight into the man’s eyes, and another stream of webbing yanked the gun from his hands. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to bring a gun to a web fight?”

That was the stupidest thing Matt had ever heard. But at least Peter was having fun.

Until the guard fell with a gurgle, a shuriken slicing through the side of his neck. With a strangled shout, Peter stumbled backwards.

Matt flipped off the edge of the roof, landing on the hood of the truck and throwing his second baton at a guard coming up behind Peter. The baton knocked the gun from the guard’s hand, but then the guard snatched the club with his unbroken hand and struck Peter on the side of the head.

Peter hit the ground and couldn’t quite get back up.

Two more bodies dropped on the other side of the building, one dead and the other dying. Matt was suddenly furious. The last man standing was still beside Peter and now reaching for his gun with his good hand. Sprinting forward, Matt kicked the gun away, then caught the man’s arm and snapped the elbow. A swift punch to the temple shut off the screeching.

Matt would feel guilty later.

For now, he crouched over Peter and was instantly hit in the face. Peter at half-strength was still strong; Matt’s head snapped back and blood filled his mouth. He spat it out to the side and quickly grabbed Peter’s wrists, wrestling them down. “Easy, easy. Same team, Spiderman.”

Peter’s suit _whirred_ as his eyepieces narrowed and widened. “Mr. Daredevil, I’m _so_ sorry, I didn’t—”

“It’s fine,” Matt interrupted. “I’ve been hit worse. By you, in fact.”

Peter groaned. “Don’t tell my aunt.”

Before Matt could reply, Stone’s footsteps wandered closer as he wiped his knife against his pants. “I thought you found yourself a new ally. Well, he needs some work, specifically on the importance of protecting vital organs, but I’ll admit he—”

Matt shot to his feet between them. “Stay back.”

Stone’s feet stopped. “Is there anyone in this city you aren’t interested in babysitting?”

“Excuse you,” Peter mumbled.

Matt stepped right up against to Stone, blocking out the scent of dead men’s blood. Stone was slightly taller, but the nice thing about being blind was that he didn’t need to tilt his head to meet Stone’s eyes. Instead, he glared at Stone’s mouth. “You don’t get to go anywhere near him.”

“Far be it from me to interfere with your training methods,” Stone answered smoothly.

Against his better judgment, Matt put his hands on Stone’s chest and shoved him backwards. The satisfaction when Stone didn’t resist dissipated the second Matt turned his attention back to Peter, who was still on the ground. “Can you get up?”

“Yeah.” Peter pushed himself upwards and made a soft, pained noise. “You got one of those clicky light things?”

“What?”

“Y’know…to check for concussions.”

Matt felt a spike of panic. “You have a concussion?” He pulled out his burner phone.

“No ambulance,” Peter mumbled. “S’not that bad. Might not even _be_ a concussion. Don’t know, since you don’t have one of the clicky light things.”

“I’m not calling an ambulance.” A concussion wasn’t life-threatening and Matt wasn’t about to force Peter into any situation where his identity might be revealed to the general public. Fortunately, he knew someone who was pretty good at helping masked individuals recuperate. “I’m calling a nurse, and you’d better do exactly what she tells you.”

Stone chuckled darkly. “Stick was never as hypocritical as you.”

What did he just say? Before Matt could sort through the implications, Claire had answered his call. “I need your help,” he said immediately.

“Are you dying? Because that’s unusually blunt.”

“Someone else is hurt.”

“Or maybe not,” Peter pointed out, managing to get to a sitting position. “You don’t have one of those clicky light things.”

Stone suddenly shifted closer, knives clinking together. “The police are on their way and there’s another car approaching. Smells like the drugs you’ve been tracking. We need to get the kid somewhere else.”

Matt moved to intercept him. “You don’t get to _touch_ him.”

“Matt?” Claire asked confusedly.

“Can we go to your place?” he asked her.

“Sure, but what—”

He hung up and turned to Stone. “Leave.”

Stone’s head tilted slowly to the side.

“ _Leave_.”

Without another word, Stone complied.

Matt didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until Stone was gone and he finally managed to exhale. He pulled the teenager to his feet. “C’mon. I know someone who’ll take care of you.”

“You’re doing a pretty good job of that yourself,” Peter slurred.

Clearly.

 

Matt explained what had happened while Claire inspected Peter. Declaring that he did indeed have a concussion, she immediately set him up on the couch. No sooner had she pronounced him stabilized than she rounded on Matt with an unusual amount of vitriol.

“I told you to stay away from that drug.”

“Right, and since we’ve failed to interfere with it so far, you could say that I’m cooperating.”

“How’s your rib?” she demanded.

“It’s fine,” he said tightly.

She lowered her voice to a fierce whisper. “And why did you think it was a good idea to bring a _kid_ into this? You know what could happen to him!”

“M’not a kid,” Peter grumbled from her couch.

Claire’s head whipped around in surprise, but Matt didn’t feel like bothering to explain Peter’s semi-enhanced senses at the moment. “He’s Spiderman, Claire. He’d be doing this either way.”

She shoved the cap onto a bottle of pills with more force than necessary. “This conversation isn’t done.”

Matt stuck his hands in his pockets so neither Peter nor Claire would see his fingers fidgeting. “Can you keep an eye on him? I need to clear up some boundaries on your roof.”

He could practically hear her eyebrow raising. “You gonna explain what that means?”

“We’re not alone,” he admitted.

Claire followed him to the door of her apartment. “Dangerous?”

“Yes, but not to you.” He started up the stairs leading to the roof access door. He was mostly confident that Stone wouldn’t actually threaten Claire, or even Peter, for that matter. Not directly, at least. But he was also aware that it had been weeks since Stone had last been in Hell’s Kitchen. That wasn’t a long time, but then again…Matt assumed that Stone had been alone for all of those weeks, alone in his effort to carry out Stick’s mission and alone with his thoughts.

Matt knew what that felt like. He couldn’t trust that the Stone who’d returned was the same Stone who’d left.

He climbed the stairs and found Stone was sitting in the middle of the roof, twirling a shuriken along his fingers. “What specifically were you trying to accomplish back there?” Stone asked.

Matt opened his mouth to say it was none of Stone’s concern, or rip into Stone for slicing people’s throats in front of Peter. What came out instead was: “You said you’d tell me if you came back to Hell’s Kitchen.”

“You knew I was back,” Stone said dismissively.

“Why are you here? Is it the Hand again?”

“I assumed so, but unless that art gallery is a headquarters for the Hand, I suppose I misread the signs. So don’t worry, Matty. I won’t be here long enough to interfere with your tutelage.”

Now he couldn’t stop the fury welling inside him. “You killed people tonight, you realize that? You killed people right in front of him.”

“He isn’t crying about it, though, is he?”

“He’s _concussed_. As soon as he remembers what happened—”

“You’re the one who chose a child for an ally. Leave it to you to always pick the path that leaves you the most distressed. It’s bad enough that you’re trying to be Stick, now you’re—”

“I’m nothing like Stick.”

“All I’m saying is that it’s your fault for choosing a teenager. Of course he’ll need training, and of course that training will disturb both of you. Really, Matty, if you won’t listen to me, you should at least listen to your friends. Your lawyer can’t agree with you training Spiderman, can he?”

Matt didn’t answer.

“Oh, he doesn’t _know_.” Stone actually sounded surprised. “What about your girlfriend?”

“Don’t,” Matt growled.

Stone sighed. “Trust me. It’s one thing to feel the tension that comes from having your friends on the frontlines, knowing that if you don’t end up dead it’ll be one of them. At least that tension is inevitable, unavoidable, because your lawyer and your girlfriend are making their own decisions. But this?” He jerked his chin down towards Claire’s apartment. “When something happens to _him_ , you won’t be able to forgive yourself.”

He was making far too much sense, and his heartbeat sang loud and true. “So, what, you’re telling me to cut him loose? He’s already invested, Stone. He won’t stop just because I say so.”

“I know,” Stone said heavily. “You missed your chance to protect him completely. Well, the least I can do is offer my assista—”

“No.”

His voice tightened. “We both want harmony between us.”

It wasn’t that simple. “It’s not just us, Stone. There’s you, and there’s me, and there’s everyone I care about.” Matt rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, maybe. Maybe you and I could make something work. Allies. But I’m not letting you anywhere _near_ Peter. Not again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to everyone who wanted Stone back!


	7. The Mess Inside Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning (and spoiler alert): an eleven-year-old boy is killed by the drug and Peter witnessed it. I don't show it in real-time, just reference it in Peter's memory, but if that bothers you, you might want to skip the first bit of Peter's section.
> 
> In happier news, your comments on the last few chapters are just...wow. Guys, y'all are amazing.

Maggie

The room was cold. She zipped up her jacket as she stepped inside to see Dex already waiting for her. He’d scooted his chair too close to the table so that he was effectively constrained between the back of his chair and the edge of the table. It didn’t look comfortable, but she didn’t comment. She did, however, try to set an example by sitting in her own chair with plenty of room to breathe. “Hello, Dex.”

“You came back.” He tugged distractedly on the thin chain snaking from his cuffs to the table. “Thank you for coming back.”

“Of course I came back. I care about you.” She wished for an instant that he had Matthew’s senses, that he could read the truth in her heartbeat. “Tell me how you’ve been doing.”

“I don’t know.” He pressed his hand to his forehead. “I’m…I’m following the rules, Sister. I just don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

“Are there certain times when it’s harder?”

He hesitated, then nodded.

“When is it especially hard?”

He glanced down at the table, but the answer came quickly enough that he couldn’t have had to think about it. “Whenever I see the sky.”

She waited until his eyes met hers again. “Can you tell me more about that?”

He rubbed his hand over his mouth. “It’s like I’m stuffing myself back into a bottle. For the first time in my life, I was out of the bottle when I was wearing the Daredevil suit. But you’re trying to put me back in.” His brow furrowed. “Aren’t you?”

“Why do you think that?” she asked carefully.

His gaze flicked to the other corner of the room. “Fisk said society could never understand me. Or accept me. Not who I really am.”

“Dex, are you worried that I’m trying to change who you are?”

He looked even more distraught as his eyes locked onto her. “Aren’t you?”

She held his gaze. “Tell me who you think you are.”

“I don’t…” He swallowed. “I’m me.”

She nodded encouragingly. “And what are the most important parts of you?”

He blinked fiercely as his eyes moistened. “I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.”

Had he ever known? With any degree of confidence? “Well, I haven’t known you very long but I can already tell you some things I like about you. You seek out help when you know that you need it. Do you know how few people are able to do that? It says a lot about you.”

“Like…like what?”

“It says that you’re brave, and humble, and—”

“Humble?”

“Because you realize that you’re not perfect, that you’re not quite who you want to be.”

His eyebrows drew closer together.

“And those are just a few examples. You have so many different things inside you.” She held up a finger. “Things you can choose to nurture and develop.” She held up another. “And things you can repress and try to ignore.” A third. “And things you can identify, but decide: _I don’t want this to be part of me_. You’re not limited to how you perceive yourself right now. You can redefine who you are.”

He was shaking his head. “That’s going back in the bottle.”

“No, it’s taking ownership for who you want to be.” He didn’t appear convinced, nor did he appear to even understand what she was saying. She leaned closer, propping her chin on her hand. “Let’s break it down, all right? Think about anger. If you’re angry, you can either tell yourself that there’s nothing you can do, because any attempt to calm down is changing who you are…or you can look at the anger and say, _I don’t want to be this way_.” She paused. “What did Dr. Mercer want you to do?”

“She wanted me to control myself.”

“Did it feel like she was stuffing you into a bottle when she taught you those things?””

“She wasn’t doing it on purpose.”

“But…” She kept her tone neutral. “But did it still feel like that? Or did it feel like you were getting better, like you were becoming a person you liked more?”

He swallowed, eyes darkening. “I don’t know. I was a kid.”

“Well,” she said more confidently, “now you’re an adult, and your perspective is so much broader. You have all this experience you can use to figure out who you want to be. You can be better than who you are right now, Dex.”

“But I don’t know how.”

“That’s all right. We can work on it together.” She touched his hand. “I’ll help you get better.”

But his stormy expression did not fade. When he pulled his hand away, her heart sank even as a chill raced down her spine.

He didn’t want to change.

 

Matt

Opening the door at Fogwell’s for Micah and Ella felt oddly like baring his soul. Predictably, Ella dashed ahead of both of them to explore. Micah followed after her while Matt locked up and joined them by the punching bags, trying to figure out when he agreed to this. He must have, because here he was in sweats and a t-shirt, and Ella was wearing an old-smelling jacket with a scarf wrapped around it like a belt.

“It makes her feel like a karate master,” Micah explained, somewhat apologetically.

Matt raised his eyebrows. “Well, I’m sure she looks very intimidating.”

Micah snorted, turning around once as if surveying the place. “This is nice,” he said with the air of someone still reserving judgment. He tapped the nearest bag. “How often are these cleaned?”

“Uh.” Maybe once a month, if he got lucky. “I wiped everything down last night.”

“I see.” Micah sounded both appreciative and as if he understood exactly what Matt was leaving unsaid.

“I’ll clean it before she uses it each time,” Matt promised quickly.

Micah pulled out his phone, maybe texting someone or maybe making a note. “If we plan her sessions ahead of time, I can make sure she’s here to help you with that.”

Ella bounced excitedly between the bags. “Yes, I can help!”

Matt wondered how long that enthusiasm would last. Maybe if they played music or something. Then again, he’d have to find something other than Spanish rap, probably.

She sort of slapped at the bag. “Is this where we’re training?”

“No.” He held out his hand, enjoying the feel of her soft skin as she took it. “This is.” He pulled her into the ring and she hopped straight into the center, balancing almost on her toes. “You ready?” he asked.

She obviously was, or at least thought she was, but his basic approach to this was thinking of what Stick would’ve done and then doing the exact opposite, which in this instance involved giving some kind of warning.

“Ready!” she chirped.

“Okay.” He crouched down in front of her so that their heads were nearly level, but deliberately did not touch her. “The first rule is that if someone’s scaring you, you need to run. No matter what else I teach you, you need to run first.”

“I can run,” she said seriously.

He smiled. “I know. I don’t think you need to practice that.”

“But it’d be fun,” she suggested. “We could race!”

“This other thing will be fun, too. The other thing I want you to do— _before_ you try to fight anyone,” he added, pausing to make sure she was really listening, “is _scream_.”

She gave a tiny gasp of delight. “I’m allowed to scream?”

“You _have_ to scream. But don’t just scream. Scream for help.”

“Because you’ll hear me,” she said without the slightest trace of uncertainty.

He opened his mouth, but it took some effort to say it. “Not always.”

“But—”

“Not always, Ella. Which is why when you scream, I want you to scream for the police. Even if the police don’t come. The point is for everyone else who hears you, so they know you’re not just screaming as part of a game or something. Understand?”

She nodded.

“Because this isn’t a game. We’re gonna have fun,” he promised, because training _was_ fun—even under Stick, it had been fun. “But this isn’t a game, and if you actually need to use anything I’m about to teach you, it won’t be fun. It’ll be scary.”

She nodded again, shifting her weight to betray her confusion.

“It’s okay. C’mon, I know you like to be loud. Right now, I’m giving you special permission to scream as loud as you can.”

“As _loud_ as I can?”

“As loud as you can,” he repeated seriously.

“Right now?”

“Go for it.”

Her lungs inflated and she threw her head back. “ _Police! Help!_ ”

That was the worst sound he’d ever heard in his life, and Micah’s drumming heartbeat suggested that he agreed. “Okay, okay,” Matt said quickly. “That was great.”

She caught her breath. “Do you need to practice, too?”

“No. That’s, uh, enough screaming for now. I’m gonna teach you what to do if screaming won’t help.”

“Okay,” she said eagerly.

He stood to his full height, basically towering over her. “The most important thing to remember—”

“Can you teach me gymnastics?” she interrupted.

“…What?”

“Like flips?”

Actually, given how small she was, it would probably be easier to teach her how to flip than to teach someone like Karen. Assuming Micah was okay with that. “Later, maybe. For now, I’m gonna teach you targets.” And he was exceedingly glad that neither Foggy nor Karen were here to be reminded of how Stick had chosen to teach _him_ targets. There was no point in even bringing up the method of striking enough areas of the enemy’s body to induce vomiting, because Ella wasn’t tall enough to reach most of those targets without sacrificing her balance—if she could reach them at all.

And, well, because that didn’t seem like the right thing to teach a seven-year-old.

“Targets like, where I get to hit you?” she asked.

“Exactly. So the most important thing to remember is that you’re small, and the bad guy will definitely be way bigger than you. So I don’t want you to focus on hitting _hard_ as much as I want you to focus on hitting _smart_.” He reached out and took her hand, holding it up and spreading her fingers so he could press his much larger hand against hers. “See?”

She giggled, then coughed like she was trying to stifle it. “Like Tarzan?”

“What?” Then he shook his head. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been in the ring by this point, but he figured Micah had other important things to do. He needed to teach her something actually useful. “So you’ve gotta hit where it will hurt the most, and you’ve gotta hit where you can easily make contact without losing your balance. So if I’m down on the ground like I was a second ago, you can hit me in the face, and we’ll practice that later.”

“I can hit you in the face?”

“Later,” he reiterated. “If the bad guy’s standing up like I am now, your best shot is hitting him between the legs. You’ll wanna hit as hard as you can with your elbow or your fist. Or anything, really.”

“Can I try?”

“Yeah, just—” He caught her hand, which she’d swung straight towards him. “You can hit me now because we’re training, and I’m wearing something protective, but do _not_ do this in the real world unless you have to. Don’t use it just because someone at school makes you mad or something. Got it?”

“Because it hurts?” Her voice was worrisomely gleeful.

“Yeah,” he said sternly. “It hurts a lot and I want you to still have friends.”

Micah gave a low laugh from the corner of the room. He laughed a few more times as training progressed, as Matt taught Ella about how to hit the knees and about different pressure points, but he never interrupted.

When Ella stifled a yawn for the second time, Matt stopped. “That’s good for today.”

“I wanna keep going,” she argued—stubbornly, but also sleepily.

“Buttercup,” Micah called, “it’ll be past your bedtime already by the time we get home.”

Matt bit his lip. He hadn’t exactly been keeping track of time. Stick’s usual approach was to drill until Matt too clumsy to defend himself from a head strike. Not hard enough to knock him out, nothing like that, but to drive the point home. Warriors were supposed to end the fight before they got exhausted.

Shoving Stick out of his mind, or trying to, at least, Matt picked Ella up and carried her out of the ring. Half of him wanted to ask what Micah had thought. The other half was afraid of what Micah might have seen.

Micah wrapped Ella up in a bigger jacket. “That was amazing.”

Matt stuck his hands in the pockets of his sweats. “I know. She’s a fast learner.”

“That’s true,” he said with a hint of amusement in his voice, “but that’s not what I meant.”

 

Peter

He should not be doing this. He’d intentionally avoided doing this, even in the face of an insane level of curiosity. But despite everything Daredevil was trying to teach him, Peter still wasn’t great at tracking scents. So the fact that he’d caught Daredevil’s scent _now_ …Peter didn’t really believe in signs, but this kind of seemed like a sign.

Because devil’s hell was horrifying. Hallucinations? Terrifying. Memory loss? Yikes. All that blood? No, thank you. Although the blood only really mattered if the victim got slashed or something. Peter had already heard a couple stories of criminals eating or drinking the drug, one case where the guy might have breathed it in, but he’d also been high on some other stuff so no one was sure what exactly did him in. At least those bad guys hadn’t had to bleed out.

But Peter learned tonight that devil’s hell’s victims weren’t just criminals anymore. Maybe the civilians were being intentionally targeted. Maybe they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe Vanessa and her goons just couldn’t keep control of a drug so powerful.

Peter did not care. All that mattered was the aftermath.

There’d been some kids playing in a park way too late at night to be safe, but Peter hadn’t paid enough attention until one of them screamed. The rest joined in, yelling, panicking. Then they scattered—all but one.

The scent of devil’s hell had already been wafting away, but Peter still tingled from the sense of the danger. But he wasn’t the one in danger, not really.

The single scream stretched on and on. The heart pounding too fast, way too fast for someone so young. Peter could still smell the wood chips he’d kicked up when he’d sprinted to the scene. Too late.

He’d been about three feet away when the heart stopped.

Peter didn’t dare close his eyes for fear of seeing the body again. A boy in a pale yellow hoodie, maybe eleven years old. Peter called the cops and then he waited because…because he didn’t want the boy left alone.

Once he'd heard the approaching sirens, he'd taken off, searching for something—anything—else to think about, and stumbled almost immediately across Daredevil’s scent. It wasn’t fresh, but Peter started following the trail anyway, through some complicated rooftop path. Just this morning, Peter had been so excited about learning parkour. He had his webs, but there weren’t always things to swing from, and besides, Daredevil made it look so cool, you know?

The trail brought him to the roof of an apartment. Actually, the trail died a block or so away, but Peter kept the trajectory until he caught Daredevil’s scent again: older and concentrated on the top floor of the apartment. The guy must be loaded. The roof access sure seemed important, especially for a guy who couldn’t exactly stick to walls. Peter landed on the roof, immediately triggering the sound of barking below. From Daredevil’s apartment, apparently. The barking sounded too young and happy to be a guard dog, so Peter decided to go for it. Assuming he could get inside.

Daredevil left his door unlocked, apparently. Peter would definitely remember this for the next time Daredevil tried to lecture him on not being conscientious enough about something.

He slipped into the apartment and was immediately met with a small tornado of fluff. A cream-colored puppy jumped halfway up Peter’s body, still barking. Hackles were raised, but the tail was wagging, like the dog couldn’t decide if it was angry at Peter for intruding or thrilled at the excitement.

“Hey,” Peter whispered, and made it his entire focus to win the affections of this puppy. “What’s your name? I’m Peter.” He held out his hand and the dog sniffed, then sneezed, then gave Peter’s suit a tentative lick. The dog sneezed again and refrained from any more licking, opting instead to spin in a circle like he (she?) couldn’t figure out what to do with all that enthusiasm, if licking was gross. Peter hesitated, then pulled off his mask, telling himself that it was because he thought the puppy wanted to lick his skin, not because the mask was suffocating.

He sniffed the air. There was the distant smell of dog treats, but Peter couldn’t pin it down. Slowly, in case the puppy suddenly remembered how to be a guard dog, he made his way down the stairs.

Daredevil’s apartment looked both barren and lived-in at the same time. There wasn’t much stuff, but it was like everything that was there had one specific place where it was supposed to be, and nowhere else would work. Peter glanced over his shoulder just to make sure he hadn’t disturbed anything. Looked okay. He stepped tentatively into the living room, careful not to touch anything. A dark stain caught his eye, mostly under the couch but also a tiny drip on the leg of the coffee table. Blood. No surprise there.

To the right, there was a kitchen. To the left, a bedroom and bathroom. Slightly behind him was some kind of closet that looked strangely ominous, and a longer hallway to the front door that looked like it should be lined with pictures or something but wasn’t. Poking into anything seemed like a huge breach of boundaries, even worse than what he was already doing. He still couldn’t find the dog treats, but there was some kind of chew toy on the living room rug. Peter slumped down beside the couch—away from the blood stain—and kept the dog at arms-length as she (it was definitely a girl) tried to sniff Peter’s face. He tried to distract her with the toy, but she was way more interested in him. Peter couldn’t complain.

Especially because time kept passing and Daredevil kept…not showing up. It was getting harder to focus on the dog. She finally stopped investigating him, so he distracted both of them in a game of tug-of-war. She wore herself out, and Daredevil still wasn’t home. She flopped down beside Peter, using his thigh as a pillow. Which was nice and all, but left him with nothing to think about except replaying…before.

Finally, finally, he heard a distant sound. Footsteps coming up the stairs outside. Suddenly, the immediate situation Peter had gotten himself into shocked him to his feet, dumping the puppy out of his lap. No getting out of it now; even if he ran away, Daredevil would smell him and probably track him down in less than half an hour because no matter how good Peter was with his webs, Hell’s Kitchen was Daredevil’s territory.

The puppy ran to the front door and Daredevil’s footsteps stopped on the other side. “Peter,” he said, just loud enough to be heard, “I know you’re here.”

Peter leapt upwards to hang up wide-down from the ceiling and didn’t answer. Not trying to hide—that was obviously pointless. He’d even left his mask on the stairs. Not that it mattered since Daredevil already knew who he was. The _point_ was…Peter just couldn’t speak.

“You’re in my home,” Daredevil said through the door. “This is highly inappropriate.”

“I’m sorry.” The words came out in a squeak.

Daredevil’s voice sharpened. “Did something happen?”

Yes.

A key clicked in the lock. A door opened. There was the sound of him setting something against a corner, and then Daredevil’s footsteps approached down the hall. Peter blinked in surprise. He was…wearing a business suit? And…sunglasses? His suit was rumpled and his brown hair looked like he’d spent the day running his hands through it. He absently scratched behind the dog’s ears as he dropped a worn-looking shoulder bag on the floor and shed his jacket, then leaned against the corner wall with his arms folded. He gave no indication that he cared that Peter wasn’t wearing his mask. “What happened?” he asked.

“Um...”

“You’re not hurt,” Daredevil observed carefully. “Not since the last time we saw each other.”

Peter crawled backwards an inch or two. “I was just—” The words got lodged in his throat. Don’t cry. He focused again on the strange bareness of Daredevils’ apartment, on the weird fact that he was still wearing sunglasses inside, all to distract himself from Daredevil’s soft cadence which, by this point, was dangerously familiar. Familiar enough to tighten Peter’s throat. “I couldn’t help someone.”

Daredevil waited a moment before responding. “Someone you know?”

“No. Um. A stranger.”

He nodded once. “While you were patrolling?”

“It was that drug. Devil’s hell. But it wasn’t…it wasn’t supposed to…”

“Was the victim a criminal?”

“No, he was…” Peter exhaled shakily. “He was a kid. Like…maybe a fifth grader.”

Daredevil’s eyebrows drew closer together in understanding. Putting one hand on his hip, he rubbed the bridge of his nose under his glasses with the other. “I’m sorry, Peter.”

“I heard it happening, I was just…I couldn’t get there in time and devil’s hell works so fast and his heart just couldn’t—” Peter snapped his mouth closed.

Daredevil’s head tilted minutely. Then, abruptly, he walked into the kitchen, got a bottle of water from the fridge, and held it out. When Peter didn’t move, he sighed. “I’m not throwing this at you, so if you want to have some water, you should get off my ceiling. My official legal advice, by the way, is that you should definitely drink some water.”

Peter squinted at him. “Legal advice?”

“I…” Daredevil seemed to squint behind his glasses, lowering the water bottle. “Because I’m…” He gestured vaguely.

The vigilante was a lawyer? “No way,” Peter breathed.

Daredevil scowled. “Stop sounding so surprised. You knew I—”

“I had no idea!” Peter exclaimed, then winced. He probably wasn’t supposed to know it now. Was he? Daredevil clearly assumed he knew, but why….

Daredevil strode into the living room to snatch one of the folders off the coffee table, a glossy blue folder that had the words _Colombia Law_ shining across the front. “What did you think I was doing with this?”

“I…didn’t notice,” Peter admitted, ashamed of his abysmal observance. In his defense, he was a super hero, not a detective. “So that card you gave me, that was _yours?_ ”

“Yes,” Daredevil said testily.

Well, Peter had barely looked at the card. In fact, he might have already lost it? He remembered there were three names on it, but that was it. He was definitely gonna be researching all three of those names first thing when he got home, though.

Daredevil set the water bottle on the coffee table. “I don’t need to tell you how important it is that this information stops with you. You can’t tell your friends or family or _anyone_.”

“I know,” Peter said quickly. “Please don’t break my jaw.”

He glared. “We’ve gotten sidetracked. Come down from my ceiling and drink your water and tell me as much as you feel comfortable with.”

Peter hesitated. The chair beneath him did look welcoming, but he felt safer on the ceiling. Wait, this was Daredevil. His _friend._ Or, at least, an ally. And definitely someone who cared about helping people, at least as Daredevil if not as part of his day job. Peter was reserving judgment on the lawyer thing for now.

He dropped onto the chair and accepted the water bottle.

“What about food?” Daredevil asked.

“I’m not hungry.”

“I’m not asking if you want food, I’m asking if you need to eat. When was your last meal?”

Peter tried to remember.

Apparently, he took too long. Daredevil stood up and returned to the kitchen. “Should I order in or make you something?”

“I don’t know.”

He pulled out a pot from a cupboard. “I’m making soup,” he announced. “If you want a sandwich to go with it, you can come pick out ingredients and make it yourself.”

Peter did not want a sandwich or soup, but he especially didn’t want to sit on the couch with nothing to distract him from his thoughts. So he joined Daredevil in the kitchen, trying (and failing) to move as silently as the other vigilante.

Daredevil rapidly pointed out where to find various ingredients before focusing on the soup. He didn’t comment when Peter eventually selected the stuff for grilled cheese.

And Peter didn’t say anything either, even though he thought he was about to vibrate out of his skin. Coming here was a mistake. What did he expect, that Daredevil would give him a hug and tell him everything would be okay? That Daredevil would actually be able to convince him it wasn’t his fault? That Daredevil would have _any_ kind of magic words that would make him feel better?

Maybe he just thought he’d be able to talk about it. Wasn’t talking supposed to help?

Abruptly, Daredevil set aside the spoon he was using to stir the soup and turned around to face Peter directly. Pretending he wasn’t startled, Peter tried to meet Daredevil’s gaze, but the glasses were too dark. Daredevil didn’t say anything, either. Just stared like he was trying to read Peter’s mind.

After everything else that had happened, Peter couldn’t handle this feeling of being x-rayed. He was about a second away from jumping onto the ceiling and scuttling out the door when Daredevil spoke.

“My name is Matt.”

What?

Daredevil— _Matt_ —gave his head a small jerk, something between a nod and a shrug. “It’s on the card. You’d find out eventually anyway.” Now he held out a hand. “Matt Murdock, attorney at law.”

Peter shook it instinctively, because manners. “Do…do I have to introduce myself again?”

Matt’s lips twitched into the smallest smile. “If you want.”

No, that would be weird. Peter bit his lip. “Thanks, then. For telling me.”

Matt looked like he was about to reply, but instead he just did that nodding thing again and returned his attention to the soup.

Following his example, Peter spread butter on the back of the sandwich. “I got there after he was already dead,” he said suddenly.

Matt didn’t even turn his head. “And has this happened to you before?”

“Has it happened to you?” Peter concentrated on starting a second sandwich and it seemed like Matt was expending equal effort to avoid looking at him.

“Yes. It doesn’t get easier,” he added. “And I don’t think it should. But I guarantee it will happen again if you keep this up, so if you don’t think you can handle that, this is—”

“I’m not gonna stop,” Peter interrupted, chest tightening. _Couldn’t_ stop, and nights like tonight was exactly why.

“Okay,” he said calmly. “I didn’t think you would. But this…this isn’t the first time. You know that, right? Do you…have you already talked with anyone about it?”

Who was he supposed to talk to? Ned? Aunt May? Mr. Stark?

Actually, he thought Mr. Stark would probably understand. That didn’t mean he thought Mr. Stark would be very helpful. Probably talk to him awkwardly and then give him some STEM-related project to work on and they’d never speak of it again.

He realized Matt was still waiting for his answer. “Sorry, no. I haven’t. I wasn’t even planning on talking to you, really, I just…” The ingredients blurred and he blinked back tears with a loud sniff.

He hadn't wanted to be alone but coming here was obviously a mistake. Wouldn’t change anything, wouldn’t fix anything. He blinked harder, fought to control his breathing, tried to just make the stupid sandwich so he could leave.

Without warning, Matt's hand was on his shoulder. Then it moved around his back, tugging him firmly closer until Matt could put both his arms around him. “It’s all right,” he murmured. “I have you.”

And he didn’t seem to care when Peter’s tears wet the front of his shirt.


	8. One or the Other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys I love Peter so much.  
> Warning: cliffhanger

Brett

The world was dark when his shift ended, but at least the air was no longer bitingly cold. Brett still pulled on gloves as he headed for his car, looking forward to a hot shower as soon as he got home. He’d thought the late shifts wouldn’t be so bad once he was doing detective work. Ha.

There was a faint _thud_ behind him. Brett whipped around, drawing his gun, only to lower it at the sight of an all-too-familiar silhouette. He holstered his gun and folded his arms across his chest. “Did Nelson send you?”

Murdock evaded the question and didn’t even try to be subtle about it. “I know who’s behind devil’s hell. It’s Vanessa Fisk.”

“Damn,” Brett whistled. “Finally, some good news. When are you taking her out?”

The line of Murdock’s mouth turned grim. “I’m not. If I target her, Fisk won’t care about the law or his reputation or anything else. His sole purpose will be destroying not only me but the people in my life.”

People like Foggy? Did Fisk know who _Murdock_ was? Brett’s eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me Fisk knows who those people are?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just look into it, that’s all I’m asking.”

“I don’t know how much you know about police procedure, but I can’t get a warrant without probable cause unless you feel like hamstringing the prosecutor’s case.”

“There’ve gotta be at least five judges in this city who’d leap at the chance to authorize a warrant against Fisk’s wife.”

“You think?” Brett asked pointedly.

Murdock visibly gritted his teeth. “Look, I’m telling you where I draw the line here. But I’ll help establish probable cause or do whatever else you need to take her down with the force. Just tell me what you need.”

Shifting his weight, Brett rested his hands at his hips near his belt—near his gun, though that was not intentional. “Our immediate concern is for the victims. If you can get the drug before it’s injected into someone, we can run tests. Plus, stealing some of the stuff would be powerful evidence at trial once we tie it back to Vanessa. So, think you can handle that?”

“My _handling_ it might cause some issues at trial. Since I’m not exactly government-sanctioned.” He gestured at the mask. “But if you can have some of your people at the ready, I’ll call you in once I find a good opportunity. In the meantime, tell the force to keep all eyes on her. If she makes a mistake, you have to catch it.” Then, having dispensed his wisdom, Murdock turned around, clearly about to disappear into the night.

“Wait,” Brett ordered, possibly against his better judgment. Because despite Murdock’s skill at combat, despite whatever it was that allowed him to operate as Daredevil, he was still technically a civilian, which meant Brett had a general duty to…well, to try to knock some common sense into him.

Murdock’s head turned slowly back to look at him. Or not look. Whatever he did.

“You know what you’re getting into, don’t you? Poking at Vanessa? All the more if it’s true that Fisk knows about your…people.”

“I could ask you the same,” Murdock said slowly. “Your name isn’t exactly a secret.”

Brett shrugged. “Yeah, but I’m not the guy who locked him up twice.”

To his surprise, Murdock grinned—a frankly alarming sight under his faceless mask. “You worried about me, Detective?”

“Not you,” Brett lied, and the grin broadened for an instant. “The people who’ll turn into collateral damage if Fisk really does know about them.”

Any hint of amusement was erased. “I appreciate your concern. I’ve got it under control.”

 

Karen

Sitting on a stool in the church kitchen, Karen accepted the coffee from Sister Maggie. Matt insisted it was the best coffee he’d ever tasted, but it was made by his mother, so Karen didn’t give that much weight. Foggy also insisted it was better than Karen’s, but Foggy irrationally hated Karen’s, so she didn’t give that much weight either.

On balance, she thought Maggie’s coffee was…pretty good.

“Am I pushing him too much?” Karen asked. “I keep telling him, I don’t care about the timing. I just…I’d feel better if I knew he was at least _open_ to the idea.”

“Can you tell me why?”

Because every time Matt rejected the idea of building a family with her, it felt almost like he was rejecting her. She averted her gaze, trying to make sense of the old wallpaper: a tangle of thin, dark green vines covering a faded yellow-ish background. “If he didn’t actually want kids, that would be one thing. But he _does_ , he just doesn’t…” She gulped guiltily at the coffee. “Sorry, I don’t know if I was supposed to tell you that.”

“He talked with me, actually.” Maggie wrapped her hands around her own mug. “I shouldn’t tell you everything he told me. For one thing because I hope he’ll tell you himself; for another because I’m sure there’s plenty he left out.”

“There always is, with him.”

Maggie smiled darkly. “Be patient with him. It takes him a while to know how to explain things. Especially if it’s personal.”

“I know,” Karen said, a bit more tersely than she meant. Maggie might be his mother, but the fact that Matt struggled to articulate emotions wasn’t exactly a special insight.

“I can tell you this much, though.” Maggie drew herself up to her small height. “What I did when I…when I left him, it created a scar.” She bit her lip. “Matthew is more familiar with rejection than with faithfulness. And even the bravest of us fears rejection.”

“Of course,” she said, a trace of bitterness in her voice that even she could hear. “He’ll risk that for himself by being with me, but he won’t risk it for a kid. That’s it, isn’t it?”

Maggie spread her hands apologetically. “I think so, yes.”

Karen folded her arms across her chest. “Well, I’m not going to make him do anything he’s not comfortable with.”

“Maybe that would be good for him,” Maggie muttered dryly.

“Still, I don’t think it’s my job to…” She waved a hand. “Fix this. Even assuming I _could_.”

“No, it’s not that simple.” Maggie’s expression became piercing. “At the same time, I get the sense that Matthew isn’t the only one who’s afraid. He thinks you walk on water, so I’m not sure what you’re worried about?”

Karen stared back. She cleared her throat. “I should, um…” She stood up. “I have to get back to the office. Thanks for the coffee.”

Pursing her lips, Maggie held out Karen’s coat. “Be patient. And keep your hopes up; it won’t disappoint.” Her lips twitched. “And you should know that I’m stocking up on baby clothes.”

Laughing again, Karen pulled the jacket on. “Are you really?”

She arched an eyebrow. “Tiny socks.”

 

Karen decided to take the advice to heart, which was why she ambushed Matt as soon as he stepped into the office the next day. “Can you wear gas masks?”

Well, it probably wasn’t quite what Maggie had been thinking. But. One step at a time.

Matt blinked, propping his cane in the corner. “Come again?”

“With your senses and everything. I feel like it would be really uncomfortable, but have you ever actually worn one?”

“No,” he said confusedly. “Why?”

“Can devil’s hell be inhaled? Maybe you should keep a gas mask handy while you’re hunting it.”

He looked distinctly grumpy at the concept. “I don’t need a gas mask. Where would I even put it?”

She blocked him as he tried to edge towards his office. “Clip it on your belt? Invest in bigger pockets?”

“Karen.”

She lifted her chin. “Foggy!”

He emerged reluctantly from his office. “If you two are arguing about kids again—”

Matt flushed. “Gas masks, Fogs. We’re arguing about gas masks.”

“Get a gas mask, Matt. It’ll look cool.” Foggy brushed past them into the kitchen. “Do we have tea? I need caffeine that wasn’t prepared by Karen.”

“It won’t look cool,” Matt argued. “It’ll either look stupid or make me look like a criminal.”

Fogy snorted. “Newsflash: you are a criminal.”

“While I’m brainstorming,” Karen said, studying Matt as he huffed indignantly, “I have a few other ideas. So now that we know that Vanessa’s behind devil’s hell, your approach has been to, what, stalk her?”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to make Fisk nervous. The only people who can take her down are the police, and even then I need to stay under the radar. If he thinks I’m the reason for her arrest…” He took off his glasses to rub at his eyes. “What I really need is to get ahead of Vanessa, figure out where her runners are going, so I can tell the police to be waiting.”

Maybe she could help with that. “So you still don’t know who exactly she’s targeting with all of this, right?”

He shrugged. “Criminals. I can’t tell if she’s trying to actually help the city, or somehow trying to protect the power vacuum in case Fisk has a chance to come back and rebuild.”

“Well,” she said slyly, “would you like to find out?”

Foggy popped out of the kitchen with two packets of tea. “She has a very devious expression,” he reported.

Matt was grinning. “Yeah, I kinda got that.”

Karen nodded smugly. “I thought that if she actually is trying to keep anyone from rising to the top, we should pay closer attention to the devil’s hell victims and see if there’s a pattern. I looked into it, and there _is_ a pattern…or, at least, there was until recently.” She hesitated. “Some of the more recent victims haven’t, um, been criminals at all.”

Matt’s face darkened. “Yeah, I’m guessing Vanessa’s stretching herself too far. Losing control.”

“Anyway,” Karen said quickly. “She’s definitely targeting certain individuals, but it’s harder to draw a pattern. What’s a lot clearer is that she’s mixing devil’s hell into drugs that are normally being trafficked through Hell’s Kitchen, methodically taking out certain gangs—starting with the larger ones and working down. So I’m pretty sure I know who she’s going after next. The Sons of Satan.”

Foggy frowned. “Didn’t they just move down by the docks?”

“Until they get driven out,” Matt said. “It’s definitely a power grab. I’ll look into it.” He grabbed his cane, then paused. “Karen…how did you find all this?”

“I visited the hospitals,” she said innocently.

He raised his eyebrows.

She glanced at Foggy for help, but he just drew a line across his own neck and ducked back into the kitchen. Traitor. “And…the police station.”

Matt looked pained. “Karen, going around and asking about Vanessa’s victims…” He wrapped his hands tighter around his cane. “What if Fisk—”

“I’m not going to lock myself in my room just in case Fisk doesn’t like it when I go outside,” she snapped.

“I know, just…please, tell me you’re being careful.”

“I have a gun,” she said exasperatedly, then stopped as she remembered that he _knew_ she still had a gun, but they’d never talked about it. Not once. She searched his face. His jaw was tense but she couldn’t read his expression.

Foggy was brave enough to step back out of the kitchen and put a hand on Matt’s shoulder. Matt clearly made a concerted effort to relax.

“Good,” he managed to say.

Her eyes narrowed. “That was convincing.”

Foggy glared at her and drew another line across his throat.

Matt, meanwhile, tipped his head back as if staring at the ceiling. “I just mean…if you need to use it…I get it.”

She was certain he didn’t, and her stomach shriveled at the realization that Matt wasn’t just worried about what might happen _to_ her if she caught Fisk’s attention.

“Thank you, though,” he said quickly. “For what you found. That’s brilliant, that’s genius, that’s exactly what we need. I’m gonna, uh…” He gestured vaguely and ducked back outside.

Karen let out a slow breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding and glanced at Foggy. “That went well.”

 

Matt

Peter showed up five minutes early. “Nice night, right?” He dropped down from his webbing to land beside Matt on a two-story restaurant.

“How’re you holding up?” Matt asked.

Peter stiffened, heart beating faster. “What? Good. I’m good. What’s up?”

The lie was obvious enough, but someone who couldn’t hear his heartbeat would’ve still known something was wrong just based off his adamant denials that anything was wrong. Because there was no way Peter could snap from breaking down in Matt’s kitchen like that to being everything-is-awesome Spiderman in only two days.

Matt just didn’t know if the right thing to do was to push him about it now or let him live in the moment. He hoped he wasn’t using the urgency of their mission as an excuse to wait.

“I googled you,” Peter announced.

“Did you.”

“You guys are the ones who took down Fisk! Dude, I had no idea. And then that Aaron James case, that was—”

Matt batted the top of his head. “Don’t talk about my cases when we’re out at night.”

“Sorry, sorry. Just…you’re like a thousand times cooler than I thought, and what I thought was already really cool.”

Matt started walking away, leaving Peter to follow when he got over his misplaced hero-worship.

Peter fell into step just behind him, but then his breathing changed, indicating he was about to speak and was also nervous about it. “Quick question.”

Probably not. “Yes?”

“I’m really, _really_ sorry if this is rude or anything, but it’s kind of important to know for, like, strategy purposes if one part of a team can’t…I mean, is…isn’t…um…”

Matt held still, letting Peter catch up. “I really am blind, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Okay, _good_.” Peter tensed. “I mean, google says you are, but then I figured you would’ve faked that because it’s such good cover, but then between the glasses and your mask, I figured something had to be…I’m not saying it’s good that you’re _blind_ , I just wanted to come to the right conclusion. And that would’ve been really awkward if it was the wrong conclusion.” He deflated. “This is awkward anyway. Please let me die.”

“It’s fine. The accident that took my eyesight also gave me senses that are even more enhanced than yours, so…” Shrugging, he leapt onto the next building. It didn’t balance out, not really, not all the time.

There was a silence, like Peter was trying to figure out what to say. “Well, you’re not missing much right now. This place is really ugly.”

Matt laughed briefly. “Thanks.”

“No problem, Mr….” He broke off.

“Daredevil at night. Otherwise, first names are fine between us.”

Oddly, Peter’s whole body lit up with some combination of relief and excitement.

Matt cleared his throat. “All right, listen carefully. This mission is about stealth: we’re keeping an eye on things, but we’re not interfering. We need to let the police do their job for them to use the evidence against Vanessa at trial, but we need to go unnoticed.” Matt leapt onto the next building. “Got it?”

“Got it,” Peter said, and shot webbing at a rusty railing that groaned loudly under his weight as he swung from it. Peter cringed as he landed beside Matt.

Matt gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder and kept moving. “First rule of stealth: the mind is most important. It doesn’t matter how quiet you are if you panic. Because this isn’t like combat where your immediate concern is whatever weapon is the best able to hit you at the moment. Every single eye and ear out there is equally dangerous. It takes a lot of concentration to track so many variables and your instinct will be to prioritize whatever’s right in front of you. Don’t.”

“Sure,” Peter said. “Keep track of everything. Understood.”

“Specifically, you need to slow down. In pretty much every way.” Matt paused. “When I’m distracting them, if you’re paying attention to me—which you should be—you’ll notice that I move pretty quick. That’s because I know what I’m doing. You don’t. So slow down.”

“Got it,” Peter said quickly.

Matt frowned.

“Got it,” he repeated more slowly.

“Remember, control the area, but don’t touch the evidence.” Matt paused. “Let me reiterate. Don’t touch anything.”

“So you say that now, but you do realize that’s not gonna work, right? Between Vanessa’s goons and the rival gang and the _cops_ , someone’s gonna get hurt.”

“As long as the evidence is intact, it’ll be fine.”

Peter gave a longsuffering sigh. “I think we should have a Plan B because I don’t get how I’m supposed to stop them from taking off with their truck without fighting them.”

“Plan B is following the drugs to a new location. That doesn’t require any fighting.”

“Plan C, then,” he insisted. “What happens if they see us and _they_ start the fight?”

“We leave,” Matt said adamantly, “and try again later.”

“Yeah, after they up their security. Plan C should be…I don’t know, stealing the truck.”

“Neither of us can drive.”

“Well, not _legally_ …”

“I’m stopping you right there. Here’s your Plan C: I’ll draw their attention away, and you stay out of sight and steal devil’s hell from a distance. Your webbing can do that, right?”

“It’s not like my webbing is sentient, although that would be brilliant if I could figure out how to—” He stopped at Matt’s disapproving frown. “Yes, I can do that. Depending on some stuff, like the angle and the size of whatever I’m trying to grab, and if it’s tied down or not.”

“We’ll give it a shot, then. If you don’t think you can get devil’s hell with your webbing, just whisper and I’ll go in myself.” It would be tainted evidence, but at least it could be useful for tests that might save victims’ lives. Matt narrowed his eyes behind his mask. “That does _not_ mean that we switch roles and you start distracting the guards.”

“Is there a version of Plan D where I’m helpful at all?”

“You’re here; you’re helpful. If you want to shoot webs at the bad guys _after_ the other plans fail, be my guest. But Plans A through C all involve you staying secret until you get the drugs, because as soon as they see spider webs, they’re more likely to just take off.”

“Your plans suck.”

“You’re not the first person to tell me that. Just…” Matt was suddenly struck by the unnerving awareness that there was very little he could actually do to keep Peter from risking his life if Peter was determined enough. “Be smart.”

It felt like tossing a pixie cup of water on a house fire.

 

There were six gang members at the docks. It was always a shady area; organized crime had driven the legitimate businesses out years ago, leaving abandoned warehouses and dilapidated stores behind. Not that any gang could hold onto the territory for long; it was too valuable with its position so close to the water. The police routinely flushed the criminals out, but they always crawled back.

Now Sons of Satan was trying to stake a more permanent claim. Matt doubted it would last, but it was nice of them to maintain a consistent location for a while.

“Can we acknowledge how overdone the whole Satanic thing is in Hell’s Kitchen?” Peter whispered as they crouched on the third floor of one of the warehouses across from an abandoned crane leaning precariously over the water; Matt held his burner phone in one hand and a baton in the other.

Matt rolled his eyes. “What’re we looking at?”

“Twelve guys. Guns.”

“And what do you know about these guys?”

“They’re bad,” Peter said confidently.

Matt rolled his eyes again. “Pay more attention.”

Peter leaned forward slightly on his hands. “They’re…nervous.” He breathed in sharply. “They’re expecting a fight?”

“Yep.” Someone had tipped them off. This was going to be ugly.

“So…Plan C?”

“Not yet.” He wasn’t even entirely sure Vanessa would choose tonight to…wait, no. Something was incoming, the scent of devil’s hell barely noticeable. Not a truck but a van, the windows already rolled down. Matt dialed 9-1-1 with his thumb. “Tell Detective Mahoney there’s devil’s hell waiting for him at the docks. No sirens.” He gave the address and hung up, slipping the phone into his pocket.

The gang members started buzzing like agitated hornets.

The van trundled closer. Matt heard the faintest tinkling of glass inside. “I think it’s in vials or something,” he murmured. “Liquid form.”

“What, like they’re selling it?”

“I guess this is just one of their stops tonight. Plan B might be our best bet.” If the cops were too late, at least they could follow the van to the next location….

The van stopped at the end of the road and, for a moment, a fragile stillness hung in the air. Then there was the hushed sound of a silencer and one of the gang members dropped dead.

“She’s shooting them!” Peter hissed, like Vanessa had broken the rules by not using devil’s hell directly.

She must’ve realized Sons of Satan was waiting for her. Matt threw his baton at the windshield, cracking it in the hopes that it would be that much harder to drive away.

“Plan C!” Peter whooped, and before Matt could stop him, he shot webbing at the crane and swung away.

Not that Matt was in a hurry to stop him, not with gunfire lighting up the docks. Three Sons of Satan were dead already, and at least one of Vanessa’s men was bleeding out from a new hole in his chest.

Matt dropped to the ground in the shadows. Peter’s webbing snatched away the gun of the nearest Son, so Matt easily took him out with a chokehold. The side door of the van slid open and some of Vanessa’s men tumbled out, shouting and shooting. There was another flash of webbing, this time shot through the open door, and a wet slapping sound as it landed on whatever was containing the glass vials. Peter tugged, but nothing broke free.

Fine. While Vanessa’s men returned fire with the gang members, Matt sprinted through the shadows until he was behind them. There were two distinct splashes and the concentration of bullets lessened—thank you, Peter—so, in what was probably a very stupid move, Matt leapt into the van. There was one man left inside and his gun came up too slow; Matt punched his throat, ripped the weapon from his hands, and struck him on the forehead with the butt of the gun.

Then Matt crouched, running gloved hands over some kind of metal crate. He wormed his hand through a gap and pulled a single vial free.

“Watch out!” Peter screamed.

Bullets sprayed through the side of the truck; Matt yanked the unconscious man down and flattened himself beside him as glass shattered around them.

Oh, great—oh, _no_.

The intoxicating scent burst around him. Holding his breath, Matt scrambled for the opposite door, clawing it open with his free hand. He rolled beneath another stream of bullets that abruptly stopped as Peter plastered the men left standing with webbing. Matt got to his feet, slightly unsteady. How much did he breathe in? How potent was it? Didn’t matter. He’d be fine. He heard Peter swinging down to knock out the webbed-up gang members. Not great form, but not bad and more than compensated for by his extra strength.

Matt joined him on the other side of the van, leaning against it. He took stock of the area, pretending it didn’t take longer than usual to note that every enemy was either dead or unconscious. “Nice.”

But Peter stiffened. “Uh, Double-D? We’ve got company.”

 

Brett

Murdock straightened like he’d been shocked. Trying to suppress his agitation, Brett exited his car to hurry towards what was now, officially, a crime scene. But Murdock of all people should’ve known better. They’d had a _plan_ , so what was he doing standing there in his stupid mask, _with Spiderman_ , surrounded by unconscious and webbed-up criminals?

“You wanna tell me what just happened?” Brett demanded. “You weren’t supposed to be part of this!”

“Things got complicated,” Murdock said flatly.

“It’s bad enough that the evidence has been trashed—”

“This one’s intact,” Murdock interrupted, holding out a vial.

Brett swore loudly, pointing at the nearest criminal web piñata. “Once backup gets here, they’ll know I let two vigilantes escape from the scene. You think that’ll look great in the report?”

Spiderman said something. Well, Brett thought he was saying something, but it was hard to tell between the mask and the fact that it was so quiet a whisper Brett couldn’t make out any of the words.

Murdock clearly could, and he did not look happy. He whispered something back.

Spiderman’s suit gave him an indignant expression and he hissed something else, still too quiet for Brett to hear.

“Speak up,” Brett ordered, nervous despite himself.

Murdock stepped closer and everything about his body language was a threat. “I know you’re just trying to do your job here, Detective, but so are we.” He held out the vial again. “You got what you need, now why don’t you thank us, and we’ll leave it at that.”

Brett accepted the vial and tucked it securely into his belt. But backup was on its way and if the other officers saw Brett chatting it up with these two…. “If this was a mugging, that’d be one thing. But this is Vanessa Fisk’s _drug shipment_. We can’t let her get away with this, which is what’ll happen if some defense attorney points out that I couldn’t control the crime scene since I let two vigilantes get away.” He took a deep breath. “Look, I’ll do you a favor, Daredevil. You take off, and I’ll tell them only Spiderman was still fighting when I got here.”

“No,” Murdock snarled, but Spiderman grabbed Murdock’s arm, whispering again and pointing at the webs.

They were running out of time. Brett braced himself. “Look, Murdock—”

Murdock whipped back around to face Brett, fists clenched.

Brett was suddenly very afraid of waking up in an hour in a hospital. He held up his hands. “Take it easy. I’ve known for a while. And now that it’s out in the open, let me remind you that you’ll be able to help Spiderman a lot more if you’re on the outside than he’ll be able to help you if you’re arrested. Again.”

And this time, there’d be no hiding behind a vigilante alter-ego. Murdock would be unmasked and convicted of a laundry list of felonies. Losing his license would be the least of his worries.

Murdock switched tactics at lightning speed. “The evidence here speaks for itself.  Get some search dogs and trace it to Vanessa’s art gallery. Then you’ll have probable cause for a warrant and—” He stiffened, head cocked to the side.

“Backup’s coming,” Spiderman murmured a second later.

“Good luck, Detective,” Murdock said, turning around.

Straight into Spiderman’s fist. Murdock’s head snapped back and he crumpled at Brett’s feet. Spiderman looked up. “Okay if I hide him somewhere before you arrest me?”

Not normally, but nothing about this was normal.  “Go ahead. Grab his clubs while you’re at it.” Privately, he thought that if Spiderman didn’t bother to come back, Brett would just have to deal with it. Murdock was right that the search dogs were a good start, but the dogs were only as good as the devil’s hell they used to search. If Vanessa’s attorney pointed out that Brett hadn’t controlled the crime scene, it spread doubt over everything the force did afterwards with this drug shipment.

And reasonable doubt was all Vanessa needed.

Spiderman slung Murdock over his shoulder like the other vigilante weighed no more than a puppy and trotted off into the darkness of an alley. Moments later, he ran back to Brett’s side and held out his wrists for the handcuffs. He was trembling.

They both pretended not to notice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Peter, so clearly I must hurt him.


	9. It's So Like You

Matt

He returned to consciousness in a cold alley, wedged behind an old couch someone had left out. It smelled terrible. He felt terrible. His head ached, his mouth was dry, there were tiny shards of glass in his skin, and he just got more nauseated the harder he tried to think.

Concussion?

Concussion.

Biting back a groan, he pushed himself upright. Tried to, anyway; his left arm had fallen asleep and his whole world was off-balance. How did he…? He didn’t remember choosing to squish himself behind a couch.

Wait. Peter.

Wriggling out into the open, Matt called Peter with his burner, but he wasn’t surprised when Peter didn’t answer. Blinking against his headache, he called Foggy next.

“Are you dying?” Foggy’s voice was loud and sharp.

Wincing, Matt pulled the phone away from his ear, backing up until he could lean against the wall. “What time is it?”

“What—it’s after nine in the morning. Where are you?”

Great question. Matt edged down the alley, only to flinch as a horn blared…somewhere. Geeze, concussions normally didn’t mess him up this much. He squeezed his eyes shut, which made no difference whatsoever. “Do me a favor and check for any news about devil’s hell last night. I’m by the docks. We were trying to set up a sting and it…went sideways.” He remembered…gunfire. Webbing. He’d saved a vial of the drug and then Brett had shown up and….

Matt halted.

Brett knew who he was.

“Got it,” Foggy said on the other end of the line. “Yeah, they arrested like twenty people. There were others found dead at the scene. Gunshots. Some of them were Sons of Satan. The others aren’t talking and the police won’t say who they think they’re working for. It’s Vanessa, right? And then… _yikes_. They arrested Spiderman?”

Matt’s stomach flipped. He hung up and started running. A good plan until he tripped over a discarded metal beam. Walking, then. Fast walking.

He arrived at his apartment in under an hour. Quite a feat given that it was daylight and he was still disoriented. Maybe from the concussion, maybe because the heady scent of devil’s hell still clung to his shirt. He remembered glass bursting around him in the van. Breathing in the sickly sweet smell. Evidence ruined. He remembered Brett showing up and taking the one vial Matt had saved.  And then…nothing.

Inside his apartment, he stepped over a puddle at the base of the stairs (he didn’t normally leave Frank alone this long, and she was hiding under his bed in shame) and checked the messages on his normal phone. Two recent ones from Foggy berating him for calling on his burner phone and promptly hanging up, one from Karen, and one from Peter at about three in the morning.

“Hi, um, Mr. Murdock. So they said I could make a couple phone calls as long as I don’t cause problems, so that’s cool. Thought it was only supposed to be one, but I guess that’s just a movie thing? Anyway, so I thought you could, um…be my lawyer? If that’s how that works? If you’re, you know…up to it. Sorry about…you know. Never mind. I guess if you don’t come I could call your partner but I’d kind of rather it be you, so…please come. Um, soon. If you can. Thanks.”

_Click._

All right, at least that made his next step clear. He took a two-minute shower, just to get rid of the glass shards and the blood, dressed in the first suit his hand found in the closet, and was halfway down the stairs before he realized he’d forgotten his cane.

He never forgot his cane. Intentionally left it behind, sure. Threw it into dumpsters when necessary, absolutely. But he never _forgot_ it.

Matt shook his head sharply, which was a painful mistake. But this was ridiculous. And dangerous. Because it wasn’t his liberty at risk if Matt couldn’t do his job right now. It was Peter’s.

Foggy. He should call Foggy. Except that Peter didn’t know Foggy. Had no reason to trust Foggy. Except, who _didn’t_ trust Foggy?

Except calling Foggy would mean telling Foggy that Matt had been meeting up with Spiderman for a week but chosen not to say anything. Foggy would be mad and hurt and confused and Matt really didn’t want to deal with that right now.

He was also running out of time in this impromptu stairway strategy session with himself. Matt made the executive decision to end the session, retrieve his cane, and go to the station alone.

Later. He’d call Foggy later.

 

Being at the police station was unenjoyable on the best of days, but today it felt like sticking his head in a washing machine full of pennies. Everything was loud and jarring and the air smelled like copper. He needed to speak with Brett. But not right now. He needed to speak with Brett when he wasn’t in danger of breaking Brett’s arm.

He moved on autopilot, asserting his reason for visiting, deflecting concern over what was apparently a splendid black eye, and learning where to find Peter. Before making his way down the hall, he stopped by the drinking fountain and gave himself one minute to meditate, trying to pull himself together. Meditating in one minute was impossible, of course, and he was still slightly shaky when he started tapping his cane down the hallway again. He should’ve eaten something, probably. Too late now. He slowed down as he passed room 104. The room where he and Foggy first met Karen. Peter’s heartbeat was light and fast in room 105.

Peer sat up straighter the instant Matt opened the door. They’d removed his suit and his mask and dressed him in a large t-shirt that swamped his smaller frame. “Hi, Mr. Murdock.”

“Matt,” he reminded him. He sat down opposite Peter, feeling the cold of the metal chair seep through his dress pants and hoping he looked more competent than he felt like he looked. “How are you holding up?”

Peter’s voice was abnormally high-pitched. “Do you ever think about how that question doesn’t actually make any sense? Holding up—what does that even mean?”

Not great, then. “I’m gonna help you, I promise. But that means that from this point on, you have to be completely honest with me. Everything you say stays between us, and that’s not just because I like you.” He offered a smile. “It’s the law.”

“So you really are my, um, lawyer? I don’t have, you know, lots of money. Except in my college account, but there’s still not much.”

if Peter really thought money was an issue, there was no conclusion for Matt to draw except that he was a horrible friend or mentor or whatever it was he was playing at being right now. “You don’t have to pay me. I’ll be your lawyer as long as you want me.” Matt listened, sensing Peter relax somewhat. “So, to start, I have a proposal for you. I tell you what the next steps are, and you tell me how exactly we got here in the first place, since I’m definitely missing some crucial pieces. Deal?”

Peter nodded quickly.

“All right.” Matt breathed in slowly, not so much because he needed it (he kind of needed it) but in the hope that Peter would subconsciously follow his example. “Right now, the district attorney’s office is reviewing your case. The next step for the DA is to file charges. Your charges are likely to be felonies, but we won’t know exactly what they are until your initial appearance. After that, you have a couple of choices, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” He paused. “However, that entire process looks a little different if you’re prosecuted as a minor.” He paused again. “Which, because you’re Spiderman, won’t necessarily  happen automatically. We may have to push for it.”

Peter stiffened. “They can’t know who I am.”

“I know,” Matt said steadily. “They know your face, and they have your fingerprints, but that doesn’t mean they know who you are. You don’t…you don’t keep any ID on you while you’re out, do you?”

“No,” Peter said, and Matt tried not to visibly melt in relief. “But I’m not a kid,” he added, sounding desperate to believe it.

Matt didn’t bother arguing. “Your turn. Tell me exactly what happened.”

“I don’t know. Detective Mahoney arrested me and brought me in here.”

“After you knocked me out,” Matt said pointedly.

“He was right, though,” Peter insisted. “My webbing was all over the bad guys, so if the police let me go, everyone would know the crime scene wasn’t preserved or whatever, and we wouldn’t have a case against Vanessa.”

“Taking down Vanessa isn’t more important than your _life_.”

“You sure?” Peter muttered under his breath.

Guilt stabbed at Matt’s stomach. “Peter…”

“I don’t need a lecture right now, okay? I just need…” He pressed his face into his hands. “I can’t call my aunt, can I.”

A statement, not a question. “It risks exposing your identity. But we can—” He broke off with a wince at the harsh squawk of a radio outside.

Peter lifted his head. “Are…are you okay?”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “No, actually. Someone punched me really hard in the head last night.” He waved his hand to silence Peter’s apologies. “It’s in the past.” The side effects, not so much. Although he was growing more confident that at least some of what he was experiencing was from breathing in devil’s hell. Which…he hadn’t even breathed in that _much_. Anyway, no point in bringing that up now; Peter didn’t need to worry about whether his legal counsel was…currently under the influence. “Listen to me very carefully. Our best shot at keeping your identity secret is by leaning into your youth. It’s much easier to secure a juvenile defendant’s confidentiality. Are you okay with that?”

Peter swallowed loudly.

Matt’s eyes narrowed. “Are you okay with that?”

“I just—” His breathing was too light, too fast. “I just—”

“Hey.” Matt stood up to crouch in front of him. “It’s gonna be all right. I’m gonna get you out of here.” After a few minutes, when Peter’s heartrate slowed to something resembling normal, Matt tipped his head to the side. “Now tell me. What’s the problem?”

“I’m just…I’m just trying really hard to not…to be, um…” Peter closed his mouth.

But Matt nodded slowly. Peter was trying so hard to be an adult…because the alternative was overwhelming. “I get it.” He cocked his head, but couldn’t hear anyone outside. No one in earshot, at least. “Peter, listen. Do you know about how I was on trial?”

“Yeah,” he said, then inhaled quickly. “I didn’t mean to look at all that stuff, but it was one of the first things that came up when I googled you, so I—”

“I don’t care,” Matt interrupted. “What I’m trying to tell you is that part of my partner’s strategy was playing up the, you know…” He gestured towards his face. “Blind thing. Which…which I hated. But it made me look sympathetic, which was exactly what I needed at the time. It’s called being smart.”

Peter didn’t answer.

Matt put his hand on the edge of the chair. “I realize that I’m not convincing you, but I can’t help if you don’t tell me what you’re worried about.”

He blinked several times. “It’s just. I’m already…” He lowered his head, chin tucking towards his chest. “I’m already scared enough. I don’t want to feel more like a kid.” Then he scooted back in his chair, away from Matt. “I know that’s stupid.”

“No, it’s not stupid. I get it.” But before Matt could say more, there were footsteps down the hall. Swift and purposeful. Someone was coming, possibly to check on them. If so, this was the perfect chance for Matt to demonstrate to the police exactly who they were dealing with…and the perfect chance to reassure Peter that Matt actually knew what he was doing. He kept his voice low and spoke fast. “I need some answers from you right now. Did you ever hear your Miranda rights?”

Peter stiffened as if taken aback by Matt’s intensity. “Yeah, um, last night. Right to remain silent and all that?”

“Who gave them to you? The detective who arrested you at the scene?”

“No,” he said warily. “More police got there and everything got crazy. It was…these other guys. Here at the station.”

“How many? Were you questioned before or after they gave you those rights?”

“Uh, two of them started asking before, and then this other guy came in and gave me the rights, and then they asked more questions.”

Good. Good. “Did they tell you the interview was voluntary?”

“It was voluntary?”

That answered that. “Were they armed?”

Peter nervously licked his lips. “Yeah. It’s not like they _used_ the guns, but…yeah.”

“Have they taken the restraints off at any point since your arrest?”

He rotated his wrists in the cuffs. “No.”

The door to their room opened and Matt stood up—a bit too quickly for his headache, but he kept the pain (and dizziness) off his face. He hoped. He shifted between Peter and the incoming officer.

“Mr. Murdock,” she said resignedly. “Why am I not surprised.”

Matt adopted a casual stance, chin lifted with one hand in his pocket. “I’d like to talk with you about your procedure regarding this minor. Are you aware that a custodial interrogation was performed _before_ the minor was given his Miranda warning?”

“Sir,” she said tiredly, “this is Spiderman. We weren’t about to let him walk around unrestrained.”

Matt’s voice sharpened. “He’s a minor and he was interrogated by three officers with guns in the middle of the night while in handcuffs at the police station. I’d like to speak with those officers, actually, as well as their supervisor.”

She crossed her arms. “I’m the supervisor. Lieutenant Wilson.”

“Did you condone their activity?”

Wilson paused as if determining whether he was serious. “We stripped him of his suit, Mr. Murdock, but it was stocked with deadly weapons and he’s still Spiderman. Of course I condoned handcuffs.”

Stupid Stark and his stupid, weaponized suits. What was he thinking, giving a sixteen-year-old deadly weapons? “Was Spiderman resisting arrest or being in any way uncooperative? No? That’s what I thought.”

“Are you really arguing that it’s unnecessarily coercive to use handcuffs on a superpowered vigilante known to stand against Captain America?”

“ _One_ time,” Peter muttered miserably.

“Spiderman didn’t even admit to anything during the interrogation,” Wilson pushed on, “so I’m not sure what you’re worried about.”

Honestly, she was right. Interrogating Peter without giving him his Miranda rights only meant that anything Peter said was inadmissible in court. Still. Matt smiled grimly. “I’d like to remind you that no superpowered individuals have been arrested in New York unless you count Luke Cage or the Sokovia Accords. Luke Cage’s trial is easily distinguishable and the Sokovia Accords are unconstitutional, meaning that Spiderman’s case is functionally a case of first impression. Every step if this process demands extreme scrutiny and I expect your officers to…” His mind suddenly blanked. On words. What was wrong with him? Should’ve ended that sentence while he had the chance. “…Behave appropriately in light of that.”

“I’ll make sure they’re aware,” she said dryly.

He leaned forward on his cane. “Is there anything else you wanted?”

“You should know that his detention hearing is scheduled three o’clock today and the arraignment is tomorrow.” She shifted slightly to establish line of sight with Peter. “Do you need anything?”

“I’m good.” Peter’s voice was impressively steady.

“Great. A pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Murdock. Your reputation precedes you.” With that, she left them alone, the door slamming shut behind her.

 

Bail wasn’t an option. Not for Spiderman. The police naturally had no confidence that, upon letting him out, they’d be able to catch him again. Which meant Matt needed to make sure Peter had an alibi for missing school. For that, he needed to talk to Peter’s responsible parental figure. If such a person really existed.

Apparently, Peter had an aunt. According to Peter, she was responsible. However, Peter adamantly did not want to break the news of his situation to her over the phone, in case she didn’t already know, and asked if Matt would tell her instead.

At this point, there was so little that Matt could actually do for him that he couldn’t say no to this, although he did secure Peter’s promise that Peter would call his aunt if Plan A failed, since Plan A required Matt to show up at her door and, as a stranger, try to explain how her nephew had ended up in prison but happened to already have a lawyer ready to take his case pro bono.

It was a horrible plan, even by Matt’s usual standards. So he called in reinforcements.

“You know this isn’t your fault, right?” Karen insisted, craning her neck to read the addresses on the houses as they walked. “And when are you planning on telling Foggy about all of this?”

Matt shrugged. “Just, you know…soon.”

“He’s your partner.”

Matt didn’t answer.

Karen put her hand on his shoulder, stopping him. “Hang on. What is this really about?”

“It’s about helping Peter.” Matt gestured at the Queens neighborhood around them to prove his point.

“You didn’t tell Foggy about Peter even before he got arrested, and you know Foggy would’ve _died_ of excitement at the thought of you hanging out with Spiderman.”

He didn’t debate the point. “I told you.”

“To distract me because you’d just had a bad dream.”

Bad dream. Like he was five years old.

“Do you…do you not think we’ll understand? Because we’re not, you know, superheroes?” He made a face at the word before he could stop himself and she sighed. “All right, listen. I’m not gonna beg you to tell me why you want to keep Spiderman a secret from Foggy, especially because it’s not a bad secret. Which I guess just leaves me that much more confused about why you’re keeping it a secret in the first place.”

“I’m not,” he countered. “It just…hasn’t come up.”

There was a silence in which he couldn’t sense exactly what her expression was doing, but her intent to portray all kinds of skepticism was obvious. “Foggy won’t think it’s your fault either.”

She was scarily good at reading his mind, but that didn’t mean her opinion was right. “Are we almost there? It feels like we should be almost there.”

She sighed again. “Yeah, we’ve been standing in front of it.”

He cast her a reproachful look and led the way up to the porch. “This is going to be so much fun,” he muttered.

“Not your fault,” Karen reminded him.

“So you keep saying.” He knocked.

The woman who opened the door had long, flowing hair, dangling earrings, and smelled strongly of Peter and panic. “Hello—what?” She paused, holding onto the door. “Who are you?”

Matt leaned on his cane and tried to look innocent. “Hi, May Parker? I’m a friend of your nephew’s. Peter. We—”

“Have you seen him? Is he all right? He’s been missing since last night!”

There was genuine anxiety there, but the words rang slightly false. Well, if she knew Peter was Spiderman and she knew about Spiderman’s arrest, that lined up. Matt lowered his voice. “Mrs. Parker, I know you must have a thousand concerns right now, but it’s very important that you trust us. My name is Matthew Murdock, and this is my associate, Karen Page. Your nephew asked for our help.”

“You’ve…seen him?”

Matt plunged in. “I’m not sure if you’re familiar with me, Mrs. Parker, but I’m a lawyer in Hell’s Kitchen. My office has, ah, connections with certain abnormally-powered individuals. Daredevil, for one. Jessica Jones, for another. That might be why Peter initially thought he could trust me.”

“Initially,” she repeated. She wasn’t buying it.

“I understand that you don’t trust me yet, and you’re right to be concerned. The situation is precarious and any number of people could try to take advantage of it if they…knew what I know. It’s all right,” he added, letting his voice fall into a particular cadence that always seemed to soothe nervous clients. “His secret is safe with us.”

“Peter’s a sixteen-year-old boy,” May said with a forced laugh. “I’m not sure what secrets you think he has that are so dangerous.” Then her voice hardened. “But you’d better tell me right now what game you’re playing with him.”

“It’s no game, Mrs. Parker. I can prove that Peter sent me to you.” He really, really hoped this worked. He cleared his throat. “Peter told me to make sure you know that…he larbs you.”

The words hung in the air. Then May cursed very quietly and moved aside. “Come in. Coffee?” Matt and Karen stepped over the threshold; she locked the door firmly behind them and led them to a low couch in the living room. “Is that a no on the coffee?”

“We’re fine, thank you.” Karen’s voice was gentle. “We just want to make sure that you understand what’s happening.”

“Well, I can answer that one for you right now. I _don’t_. I mean, I know that he’s…” She hesitated, clearly still unwilling to be the first one to say it out loud. She shoved her hands into her pockets and did not sit down. “You know.”

Time to move this conversation into the open. “He’s been arrested for crimes committed as Spiderman,” Matt informed her. “They know his face by now, but they don’t know his name and I plan to keep it that way. Since I’m his lawyer, everything he tells me is protected by privilege. My first priority is protecting his identity. That’s where you come in.” He aimed a small smile in her direction. “Can you get him excused from school in a way that’s not…suspicious?”

“The Stark Internship,” she said immediately. “And what about Stark? Can’t he help?”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “What, legally?”

“No offense, but he has to have more resources than you. He’s _Tony Stark_.”

“A media magnet,” Karen murmured. “Trust me, you don’t want Tony Stark involved here. Stark is an internationally recognized celebrity. Right now, you have most of Hell’s Kitchen and Queens following the story because Spiderman is involved. If this becomes a Stark story, the whole world will be watching.”

May seemed to sink into herself.

“We won’t let that happen,” Karen promised.

May drew herself back upright, shoulders back, chin lifted. “Thank you. Both of you. I, um…wow. I’m still getting used to all of this, you know? And now… _this_. Can I help, or will I…” She breathed in shakily. “Would it just make it harder to keep his identity a secret if I…?”

“You can’t be associated with his case at this point,” Matt answered apologetically. “We’ll tell you the second that changes.”

“Thank you for that.” May still didn’t sit down. She started fiddling with a strand of hair. “You said Peter reached out to you after all this happened? On his own?”

“Yes,” Matt lied. Guiltily.

She chewed on a fingernail. “And he…what, he didn’t want to call me? He could’ve called me, right?”

“I think he thought I could better explain what—”

She laughed bitterly. “I’m sure, Mr. Murdock. He’s just, uh…high school is hard enough for normal kids, you know? Balancing school and friends and clubs. And of course that’s not enough for Peter, he has to add being a _superhero_ to the mix.” Another laugh, but this one was shakier. “And I can’t even tell him I understand because I _don’t_ , and Stark doesn’t have time to help him figure out how to handle this, even assuming that _Stark_ knows how to handle it, and I—” She sucked in a breath. “I’m so sorry, you don’t need to hear all that. You sure you don’t want coffee?”

Distracted by the certainty that Karen was intentionally tapping her finger so close to his leg that he could practically feel it, he needed a second to realize May had asked a question. “Ah, no. Thank you.”

“We’re fine,” Karen agreed kindly, tapping more urgently.

Matt wished he could read her mind as well as she could read his.

May’s breathing shifted as she geared herself up to say something. “So, Mr. Murdock, I’m not sure what your usual rate is, but I—”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s the least I can do.” After getting Peter into this in the first place.

He could all but hear May’s eyes widen. “But you don’t know him. I mean, he’s a great kid, but you don’t owe him anything.”

Matt forced a smile. “The explanation that you might find more convincing is that this is a unique case not just for New York but for the nation. Any lawyer would be tempted by the opportunity to set new precedent regarding superheroes in the United States. But the truthful explanation is much simpler.” He tilted his head slightly down. “I’ve met Peter. I can’t not help him.”

 

Stone

Ella Vallier was asleep. Her dreams were peaceful tonight, for once. Her current parents sat downstairs, talking about mundanities. Some might call their circumstance equally peaceful.

As guardians, they should be more alert. Then again, Stone would be surprised to discover that they comprehended their potential danger. They were civilians.

Matty, however, had no excuse. There was a legal paper trail connecting the girl to both Daredevil and Matthew Murdock and Matty didn’t seem to realize or care. His scent did linger here, true, but not because he occasionally spent his nights staked out on their roof. Rather, he kept entering the home, wandering through the rooms. Probably eating whatever they served him and playing with the girl like they were both seven years old.

It wasn’t exactly fair that Stone should have to wait on the roof, keeping vigil to protect a soft life that Matty couldn’t bother to look after on his own.

And yet, there he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I love your comments! You're all honing in on some serious issues and I can't wait to see what you think of them.


	10. You Give Me So Much

Foggy

You know that feeling when you just know someone is watching you? Foggy looked up from his research to see that Matt had materialized in his doorway. One of his hands was in his pocket, but the other was fidgeting at his side. “What is it?” Foggy asked.

“We have a new client.”

See, that kind of thing _should_ be good news, but Foggy just groaned. “What did you do?”

“You know when I called you about that devil’s hell bust at the docks?”

“And then you hung up and didn’t call me back? Yes. Glad to know you’re still breathing, by the way.”

“And…you know they arrested Spiderman.”

Foggy felt his eyes widen. “Spiderman wants us to defend him?” It probably made him a horrible person that this was possibly the best day of his life.

Matt flexed his jaw. “I’ve already taken the case, actually. I’m asking if you’ll help.”

Okay, that was weird. “You remember all those discussions we’ve had—repeatedly—about unilateral decisions in our practice?”

“I’m taking the case. I’m sorry to surprise you with it like this, but I have to, Fogs. It’s my fault he was arrested.”

Foggy stood up, hands on his hips. “I’m gonna make a wild, crazy assumption, since you haven’t told me otherwise, and say you were there when Spiderman was arrested, right? As Daredevil. So if we take this case, I’m not sure why you think it’s smart to take point.”

Matt stuffed the fidgeting hand into his pocket. “Brett and Spiderman both know who I am.”

“ _What_.”

“Brett figured it out on his own, I guess. Says he’s known for a while. So that’s, uh….I haven’t really talked with him about it since the arrest, so I don’t know what he’s planning on doing about that.”

Foggy heard those words. Those words made sense. Horrifying sense, but sense. What did not make sense was how calm Matt was being right now, his fidgeting notwithstanding. Because Brett was a detective. Brett was on the side of the prosecution. Brett’s job was to hunt down Daredevil and anyone affiliated with Daredevil and Matt’s own trial was proof of that. And friendship with Foggy aside, Brett had every reason to discredit Matt as a defense attorney who made his living out of undoing the NYPD’s work. With great self-control, Foggy did not throw anything at him. “Let me get this straight. An NYPD detective knows you’re Daredevil and you…haven’t…talked to him.”

Matt’s don’t-question-my-life-choices mask slipped over his face. “Not yet. Spiderman was the priority and I didn’t run into Brett when I was at the station earlier.”

Because of _course_ Matt went to the station to help Spiderman, knowing Brett could lock him up then and there, without even bothering to let Foggy know the risk he was taking. “Okay. I’m now going to cancel all my plans and go talk to Brett asap. You’re going to stay here and not piss anyone off. Except me, since you’ve already pissed me off.”

“I know I should’ve told you.”

Foggy snatched up his jacket. “So why didn’t you?”

Matt’s expression now more closely resembled the proverbial deer in headlights. “I…didn’t want to.”

“Uh, no. Keeping a secret like this needs a way better excuse than _I didn’t want to_.”

“I don’t _know_ why I didn’t want to. But I’m telling you now. And regretting it,” he muttered more quietly.

Yeah, Foggy should probably back off. For now, at least. “Okay. Okay. Our new client is Spiderman. I can deal with this. What happens when Tony Stark shows up?”

“We tell him to stay away.”

“Yeah, okay, _you_ can do that if we have to. I’m gonna go talk to Brett.”

Matt seemed to waver on the edge of something before he swallowed, head slightly lowered. "Thank you, Foggy."

 

“Still not sure why you insisted on meeting here,” Brett yelled over the pulsing electronic beat enveloping them.

Foggy wasn’t thrilled either, but it said a lot about how Brett actually felt about him that the detective had been willing to meet at Atomic Bar, well known for being one of the loudest bars in Hell’s Kitchen. They were now tucked in a back corner, poorly-lit and far too close to an obnoxiously loud speaker in the ceiling. But New York law allowed the secret recording of conversations as long as one party agreed, which meant Brett could be legally recording this conversation if he wanted. Foggy wasn’t taking any chances. “Super secret conversations call for super secret locations.”

“Spit it out, Nelson.”

“Daredevil.”

Brett raised his eyebrows, then took a cool sip of his drink. “What about him?”

Not quite the response Foggy had expected. “Well, what’re…what’re you planning on doing about…that?”

Brett sighed heavily. “Look. I’m responsible to the people of Hell’s Kitchen. The people have given Daredevil a lot of leash. I’m willing to play along until…until a line is crossed.”

Foggy narrowed his eyes. He needed Matt’s ears to tell if Brett was telling the truth, but he didn’t want Matt anywhere near Brett until this was sorted out. “What line? He’s already a criminal.”

“I’ll know the line when I see it. So will you,” he added warningly.

“You’re not just waiting to trade him in for a promotion or something?”

Brett lowered his gaze to his drink. “He’s the one who got me this promotion to begin with, so no, not if I wanna be able to look my mom in the eyes again.”

Foggy blinked. “He is?”

“The Punisher arrest. It was all thanks to him, but he let me take Castle in myself.” Brett shrugged. “Maybe it was in exchange for me letting him go, but still. Look, I can’t agree with his methods. At the same time, when I think about the people I could take off the streets if only I didn’t have to go through so much red tape…” He shrugged again.

“You’re gonna have to try harder to convince me,” Foggy said.

“You think? Remind me, what exactly will you do if I _do_ decide to turn him in?”

Foggy could make Brett’s life hell in court. Every time Brett looked the other way while Daredevil took the risks the NYPD wasn’t willing to take, every time Brett profited from Matt getting his hands dirty…all of it would come out on record and by the end of it, Brett would go down with Matt.

Well, not quite. Brett wouldn’t be in jail. But he could say goodbye to police work, at least.

“Brett,” Foggy began softly. “I know you don’t agree with all the defendants we get off, but we don’t _just_ do criminal defense. There’s also people like your mom’s friend, Mrs. Cardenas. He helps people no matter which suit he’s wearing. As for, uh, what he does at night…” Foggy took a deep breath. “It’s against the law, we all know that. But I want you to think about the last time you took a statement from a criminal in a hospital who’d been trying to, I don’t know, steal a kid or assault someone or something. But Daredevil stopped them. Just…think about that.”

Brett raised his eyebrows. “You don’t have to convince me how much he helps people.”

“Yeah, well, it’s good practice anyway.”

“You think you’ll need it?”

Foggy met his gaze. “I will if I have to defend him in court.”

Brett looked at him appraisingly. “You’d lose.”

“I’m actually pretty good at fighting losing battles, as long as it’s the right fight.”

Brett laughed at that and knocked back his drink. “Maybe you don’t believe me, but unless he does something crazy, you don’t have anything to worry about from me.”

Foggy couldn’t hear his heartbeat, but he believed him. It wasn’t the most reliable guarantee, but it was something.

It was enough that Foggy felt confident that he and Matt could safely camp out in the office conference room the next day. If he really was worried about Brett, he’d make Matt hole up in a motel somewhere instead of staying at a building that literally bore his name.

Not that he thought Matt would go anywhere. Matt was, currently, a hundred and twenty percent focused on the Spiderman case.

“This is ugly and creepily obsessive,” Foggy announced, skimming through yet another anti-Spiderman article in the _Daily Bugle_ from Queens. Matt insisted that they research all records of Spiderman’s activities, just in case something useful came up. “I hate the media.”

“First amendment,” Matt countered absently, his attention clearly focused on whatever was coming through his earbuds as he listened to some report or another.

“This isn’t even _good_ media, though. It’s completely biased.”

“Democracy,” Matt answered. “People are allowed to be stupid.”

“And cruel.”

“Sadly, yes.”

Scowling, Foggy swept the pile of articles aside, causing Matt to look up, clearly startled. This just all felt so pointless until they knew what Spiderman was actually accused of. “What kind of charges are we looking at, potentially?” Foggy asked. “From what I read of the drug bust, he wasn’t even using weapons, so aggravated assault is off the table unless—”

“They got a look at his suit,” Matt interrupted, unhooking his earbuds as some new agitation drew his eyebrows closer together. “It’s full of deadly weapons. They don’t know that he didn’t use any of those deadly weapons, and some of the combatants lost their lives. That puts us in first degree assault territory if not manslaughter.”

“We’ll prove that the deceased were killed by guns, make the prosecution have to argue that Spiderman picked up a gun or something. No one’ll believe that.”

Matt was nodding while a tiny voice droned on and on from his earbuds. “And we have to lean into Brett’s investigation. It was horrible, obviously, since I got away.”

Whoa, what? Foggy reached over to pause Matt’s computer. “I see two glaring holes with that strategy, my friend. First off, it weakens any case against Vanessa—”

“Not significantly,” Matt objected.

“Second, it’s practically daring—no, _begging_ —Brett to reveal who you are.”

“He won’t do that. You said he wouldn’t do that.”

“I said I think he won’t, and he _says_ he won’t, but if it’s his professional reputation on the line…he might.”

Matt’s eyes hardened. “Fine.”

Foggy felt a twinge of panic. “Fine, what? Fine, you agree that Brett might not risk is professional reputation? Or fine, you don’t care if Brett decides he’d rather give you up than risk his professional reputation?”

“I can’t let Spiderman take the fall for this,” Matt said stubbornly.

“Hang on, Spiderman made his own choice when he put on that mask, same as you.”

“Not the same,” Matt growled. “Very much not the same.”

“Why?” Foggy demanded. Matt was stonily silent. Oh, hooray. Secrets. “I thought we were past this, buddy.” What made these secrets so different from the stuff he’d revealed about Stick?

Matt pressed his lips together before firmly changing the subject. “I gave Brett a vial of devil’s hell. They can use it to research an antidote and it’ll help start the case against Vanessa. I’ll visit her gallery tonight, see if I can track one of her runners, maybe get him to flip on her.”

“Uh, no you won’t,” Foggy said.

Matt half-smiled. “Uh, yes I will.”

Foggy picked up a _Bugle_ article and shook it violently. “You’re the one who volunteered us to defend Spiderman, Matt! You don’t get to run around chasing devil’s hell at the same time!”

The stony silence was back.

Superb. Foggy should’ve expected this, he really should have. He aimed for a reasonable tone. “I just need you to chill for a couple days, okay? At least until this trial is over.”

“It’s not _going_ to trial,” Matt insisted. “No one wants this to go to trial. It’s fine.”

That was so beside the point. “Of course it’s _fine_. It’s fine for you because you can just leave me with the heavy legal lifting while you go chase down drugs, and then come crawling back to me when you inevitably get stabbed or poisoned or worse.”

Matt blinked. “I…don’t really think I deserve this.”

Guilt wrapped around Foggy’s heart and sunk it into his stomach. “I’m just…this is stressful, all right? Because not only do we hold the life and liberty of the coolest superhero in New York in our hands, present company included—”

Matt rolled his eyes.

“—but this case will also set precedent for how New York deals with every other vigilante. Including you, by the way. So I’d really like to not do this one solo.”

“I’m right here,” Matt said softly.

“For now,” Foggy muttered. “Doesn’t mean you won’t parkour away if you hear anything slightly more interesting outside.”

“Look, I’ve…I’ve apologized for the Castle case, Foggy—”

Had he, though?

“—and I’ve never done anything like that before or since. You’re not going solo here; we’re partners.” Matt moved his hand under the table so that, Foggy suspected, he could tighten it into a fist unseen. “But I can’t stop protecting the rest of Hell’s Kitchen in the meantime. I’m not asking you to do this alone, and you don’t have to worry about devil’s hell. It’s my problem. Whatever happens with it won’t even affect you, I swear.”

Foggy gaped a him. “How do you reach _that_ conclusion?”

“I’m the one out there tracking this stuff down. I’m the one who’ll have to deal with…” His jaw tightened. “What it does.”

Laughing coldly, Foggy stood up and started to pace. “Here I thought you were making progress on the whole narcissistic martyr thing. I really did.”

Matt’s sightless eyes flashed. “I’m not trying to be a martyr, I’m just saying—”

“This won’t stop with you, Matt!” Foggy pointed accusingly at him. “First off, if something happens to you, you’re not going to curl up in a ball somewhere and meditate through it, you’re going to come crashing through Claire’s window, or my window, and we’re going to try to keep you alive, and I’ll embarrass myself because I still have _no idea_ how to take care of you when you’re…you know.”

Dying.

Matt stiffened.

Wait, wait, back up. Foggy bit his lip. “Which does _not_ give you permission to go curl up in a ball somewhere and meditate through it all by yourself. If something happens and you don’t get help, I will kill you myself. Got it?”

Matt didn’t answer.

Foggy swore under his breath. At Matt, a bit, but mostly at himself. “Hold on, pretend I didn’t say any of that. C’mon, you’ve been doing so good with the whole getting-help thing.”

“I can’t stop trying looking out for this city,” Matt said tensely. “If you don’t want to be involved with the aftermath—”

“I never said that,” Foggy said quickly. “I said it’s not just your problem no matter what you do, because also the whole point of the bad-decisions list. Your mistakes affect me.”

“Are you really asking me to put your feelings above all the victims out there who might _die_ if I don’t get this drug off the streets?”

Well…was he asking that? Foggy sank back into his chair. “Look, my _other_ point was that if you’re so desperate to solve this, at least don’t try to do it on your own. Karen’s already been helpful, right? And what about calling Stone?”

Matt froze. “Why?”

He’d once mentioned—offhand, deliberately casual—that Stone had left. But judging by everything Matt’s face was currently doing, that fact was obsolete. “He’s back, isn’t he,” Foggy said, then pushed on when Matt just fiddled with the cord of his earbuds. “When did that happen?”

Matt kept fiddling and Foggy was about to murder him for his silence when Matt finally answered. “I don’t know. A few days ago. We haven’t really talked, except when I told him to stay away from P—Spiderman.”

P. Wow. Matt was on a first-name basis with Spiderman, and he’d begged Foggy for help on the case, and yet he was _still_ keeping secrets. Foggy was pretty sure this wasn’t actually Matt backsliding into old habits—some new factor was keeping his mouth shut right now. Still, Foggy didn’t know if he was more disappointed or hurt. “Well, bring Stone in to help hunt down devil’s hell.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Matt put his earbuds back in place.

Apparently, this conversation was over.

 

Stone

There was something already waiting on the suburban roof. Stone could smell cookies (chocolate chip made with an excessive amount of butter). There was no hint of danger, either, but Stone did not dare taste them. Instead, he focused on the note trapped under the plate, fluttering in the mild breeze.

_“Dear Mr. Stone, I hope this is you on our roof. I hope you like these cookies. I made them myself with my mom. Do you have a place to stay? You can stay in our house. I haven’t told my parents about you yet because they don’t know you, but you could meet them. They would probably let you sleep on our couch. I left more paper and a pencil so you can write me back. Bye, and say hi to Matt!”_

Well, there was indeed an extra piece of paper pinned under the plate, but the pencil appeared to have rolled away.

Stone scowled at the setup. For one thing, although he hadn’t been prioritizing stealth, it was slightly disconcerting that he’d been noticed. For another, now he had to…respond, somehow. Rather, the prudent thing to do was to respond. Ignoring her would surely offend her seven-year-old sensibilities, and the entire situation would escalate to Matty’s notice, and Matty would almost certainly react poorly.

So Stone kept vigil until dawn, when he moved position to wait in the backyard, standing under a large wisteria tree that dripped dew down his neck. Though he could easily hear her in her room, he chose not to try to get her attention. He simply waited, assuming that she would soon venture outside if only to check for a response from him on the roof. She wasn’t exactly patient, which was, for now, convenient.

He was right. After less than an hour, she made up some excuse to leave the home. He watched intently, curious to see how she managed to get on the roof. There was a shed tucked up against the house, separated by about a meter, which he guessed was her route of choice. Once outside, she dragged a lawn chair across the yard to the shed, then darted into the shed to retrieve an empty crate, which she stacked on the chair. But the chair was built to rock slightly and now it wobbled under the extra weight. Structural integrity was apparently unimportant to her.

Taking extra care to counterbalance the wobbling, she climbed onto the crate and stretched up, barely reaching the roof. She had to jump a little to pull herself up, kicking off the crate, which slid off the chair leaving her suspended. Stone was not concerned; the distance wasn’t that severe. He was, however, curious as to how she expected to get back down.

For now, she managed to wriggle her way onto the roof. She sat for a moment, as if catching her breath. Then she got up, seemed to study the gap between where she stood and the roof, and started running forward.

Stone’s heart dropped as her feet left the edge. Then he gritted his teeth as she landed safely. At least now he wouldn’t have to deal with Matty’s response to realizing the girl had broken every bone in her body.

She found the plate and even from a distance, Stone could see her shoulders droop in disappointment. Irritated, he climbed onto the roof in about a fifth of the time she’d taken. “You shouldn’t be up here.”

She whipped around. “Did you not like the cookies?”

“I didn’t need them.”

“No one ever _needs_ cookies, silly.” She tilted her head at him. “Were you surprised I noticed you’ve been on the roof?”

“No,” he lied.

“Oh.” She scuffed her shoe against the shingles.  “What are you doing here?”

“Talking to you.”

“I mean, why are you at my house?”

Folding his arms across his chest, he raised one eyebrow and didn’t answer.

A wicked grin spread across her face. “Mr. Stone, did you miss me?”

Now he leaned down until he was staring into her eyes. “You remember when Matty rescued you out of that church, but he was shot right in the chest and there was blood everywhere and he almost died in front of you?”

The grin fell away.

“I’m trying to make sure that doesn’t happen to _you_.”

She paled. “But Matt told me he stopped the guy who was trying to hurt me. He said you even helped.”

“This world is full of other people who’d like to hurt you, girl.”

Her chin lifted defiantly. “I know. That’s why Matt’s teaching me to fight.”

Now that was interesting. Stone stood up straight again, cocking his head at her. “Is he really?”

“Uh-huh,” she said proudly. “He says I’m really good at it.”

“Show me,” Stone ordered.

“It’s like this!” She moved her feet until she was positioned in what might generously be called a fighting stance. “See? So I can punch a bad guy right between the legs!” She demonstrated, swinging wildly.

“That was abysmally slow,” he drawled. “Didn’t he teach you not to telegraph?”

“What’s tele…” She trailed off confusedly.

“If you punch like that, your opponent can see it coming long before your strike lands.”

Her brow furrowed with concentration and she tried punching the air again, but she clearly didn’t understand what she was doing wrong. After a few more attempts, her face brightened and she relaxed her stance. “You can teach me!”

Stone snorted. “Oh, no. I’m not teaching you anything.”

“But Matt says you’re a really good fighter,” she wheedled.

Matty would also kill him if he hurt her, and he lacked any confidence that he wouldn’t.

“ _Please_ , Mr. Stone.”

“No.”

She glared at him, but he coolly ignored her. Finally, with an exaggerated sigh, she started punching the air again, but now she was rotating her wrist differently as if the problem lay with the alignment of her arm rather than the trajectory of her swing.

“Ella.” He shifted his feet, settling into a combat-ready position, and snapped his arm forward and back. “Like this. Straight.”

“But I thought sometimes people punched sideways?” She demonstrated with something that looked vaguely like a hook.

“That isn’t what you’re supposed to be learning.” It was extremely improbable that Matty would try to teach her how to throw hooks, which required a marriage of gravity and torque to be powerful, and which were most effective at a shorter range, and short-ranged strikes only increased Ella’s inevitable disadvantage in a fight with anyone over a meter and a half tall. “Extend your arm straight forward and snap it back. Don’t wave it around like you were doing.”

She practiced. She was a surprisingly quick learner, even though she giggled excessively for no apparent reason. After a few swings, however, she stopped and sniffed the air. “I’ve gotta go back down. Breakfast’s almost ready.”

He knew. It smelled too strongly of butter.

“Thank you for teaching me, Mr. Stone. You can still take the cookies, if you want.” She narrowed her eyes at the distance between the roof and the shed and he almost expected her to ask for help. Instead, she ran and jumped again.

It was fine. She’d made it, and she’d clearly made it before.

He followed, standing behind her while she squatted on the edge, looking down where the crate had fallen off the lawn chair. “How do you normally get down?”

She pointed at the crate.

He sighed deeply and stepped off the edge, ignoring her sharp gasp as he dropped to the ground. Then he turned back to face her. “I’ll catch you.”

She looked doubtful.

“Ella. Jump before your parents come out and find us.” She’d be in trouble and he…he would have a lot of explaining to do.

That seemed to occur to her too, because she glanced thoughtfully at the house. “You haven’t met them yet.”

“I don’t need to meet them, and I will walk away right now and leave you alone to suffer their wrath if you don’t jump off.”

She debated for a second, then shrugged and flung herself unthinkingly off the shed. Stone had to side-step to position himself under her. She was small, but she slammed into him with enough force that he had to take a step back for balance.

He immediately set her on the ground. “Don’t do that again.”

“Do what?” she asked innocently. To his shock, she grabbed his hand and squeezed it once before dashing away into the house, leaving him to stand alone in their backyard in the early morning light.


	11. No Matter What I Do

Matt

He should’ve told Foggy about Peter. He knew that. It was an insult to their partnership, not to mention their friendship, to keep something this big a secret. But it had been bad enough while he and Peter were only training. It already felt like Matt was one mistake away from hurting Peter, and not just physically. Matt knew all too well how easy it would be to inflict injuries that would take years to heal. If they ever did.

Foggy had never shied away from expressing exactly what he thought about Stick. Matt wasn’t ready to hear Foggy’s concern, asking if Peter was really ready for this, asking if _Matt_ was really ready for this, suggesting that maybe they should have someone supervise training in case something went…wrong.

Matt had chosen to keep the secret to protect himself, and now Foggy was hurt by it. There was no way that wasn’t selfish and there was no way Matt could undo that.

He picked the lock and slipped into the gallery. The most he could do, for now, was leave that problem behind. Leave it with the daylight hours and focus on what he had to do tonight.

He adjusted his mask. Not that it mattered—she knew who he was.

Maybe the drug was more concentrated now than it had been before, or maybe he was more attuned to it after breathing it in. Either way, he took a second to orient himself as he stopped in the hallway. The whole room on the other side of the door was filled with the scent, heady and oddly invigorating. Matt wondered, almost desperately, if anyone else could smell it. He heard her murmuring, voice thickly accented. Addresses, instructions, deadlines, dosages.

He had to stop this.

He couldn’t touch Vanessa, no. He probably shouldn’t be here at all. But she knew Spiderman had interfered with the drug shipment, and she knew Spiderman was now locked up in police custody. If Matt couldn’t protect Peter from the police, he could at least warn Vanessa that Spiderman was under his protection.

Right?

The person she was talking to finally left to carry out her instructions. Matt twisted the handle and stepped inside. Her heartrate jumped accordingly, but she didn’t otherwise react or even move from where she was standing. He crossed the room to stand beside her.

She was facing the wall, arms folded across her chest. “This is one of my favorite paintings. Shall I describe it to you?”

He kept his voice low. “I know you’re responsible for the new drug. Devil’s hell.”

“But can you prove that?”

How had he not sooner seen her for what she was? He reached out to touch the painting. “Do you remember when we first met?”

She finally turned towards him. “You came to my art gallery, pretending to be blind.”

“Well, not so much pretending. You introduced me to a painting.”

“And you left without buying.”

He dropped his hand back to his side. “The painting you described to me was warm, you said. But you’re cold. Calculating.”

“Should I be offended?”

“No,” he said simply. “Because you still appreciate passion when you see it. It’s why you love art—it’s one of the few things that can move you. And when you sell the art, you get to watch it move other people. That’s why you fell in love with Fisk, isn’t it? His passion?”

“His honesty,” she corrected.

“His honesty about his passion.”

She didn’t argue, but she did shift closer, like he was some rare piece of art she wanted to examine.

“I say all this, Vanessa, because I want you to make sure we’re speaking the same language, probably the only language we can both understand. Passion.” He paused. “Before I ever knew what Fisk was involved in, I was tracking the Russians he was working with. What do you know about them?”

“Not much,” she admitted. “They interrupted a date night of ours at one point, I think. At the time, Wilson and I were still building trust. He took care of the problem without my involvement.”

“Ah.” It was his turn to step closer, standing over her. Her scent wrapped together with the drug’s stronger aroma, but he refused to be distracted. “Then you don’t know that Fisk decapitated one of those Russians? I don’t know if it was as punishment for interrupting _date night_ or for some other transgression, but, really, I don’t think anything justifies that.”

“I didn’t know, but I’m not surprised.”

“Not disturbed, either.”

“I may not have always known the specifics, but Wilson has not hidden his true nature from me.”

“Ah,” he repeated. “As I said, I was dealing with the Russians long before I’d ever heard of Fisk. One night, I tracked them to a restaurant, but it was a trap. I barely made it out with two broken ribs and a concussion.” He paused. She didn’t say anything, but he could hear her curiosity in her quick breaths. “I went back in that same night.”

“Were you hoping to die?” she asked curiously.

He shook his head. “There were six, seven men inside. Maybe eight. It was hard to tell, because they didn’t let up until they were all beaten on the ground. I never stopped to count.”

“I can only assume you found what you were looking for.”

“Yeah. I did. A boy. Couldn’t have been older than six.” He listened, but there was no change in her heartbeat. His fingers clenched at his sides. “They kidnapped him, used him as bait, but that was only because I’d already been interfering with their trafficking. He was far from the first kid they’d stolen.” His voice hardened. “Fisk knew what was happening the entire time. He was _letting_ it happen.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Do you expect this to shock me?”

He focused, but there wasn’t the slightest hint of a crack in her resolve. “I’d hoped.”

“Wilson disapproved of the Russians. In fact, he dealt with them far more effectively than you ever did.”

“You talking about when he hacked someone’s head off, or when he blew up half the city?”

“He _ended_ their operation. And when he took it over, it was much more tasteful.”

“Took it over,” Matt repeated quietly. “That’s not ending it. The trafficking continued. The abuse, the pain…Fisk just made it look better.”

She waved her hand. “Telling me all this changes nothing.”

Matt let his left fist drift towards his baton, let her perceive the threat. “Maybe it doesn’t yet. Maybe one day it will. When, _if_ , you have a kid of your own. Maybe all their suffering will matter to you then. But that’s not why I told you.”

“Tell me.”

“When I made that deal with Fisk,” he began slowly, “in the presidential hotel, we were protecting the people we love. But you need to understand something. If I hadn’t _beaten_ him, if Fisk hadn’t been groveling in front of me, completely at my mercy, there would’ve been no deal.”

“You would have killed him?”

Remembering everything he’d felt at that point—the fury, the fear—it painfully easy to know that, yes, if Fisk had kept fighting, if he hadn’t given Matt the instant he needed to think, Fisk would certainly be dead now. But a moment was all Matt had needed, and a moment was what he’d gotten.

“Thank you,” she said again, softly.

He wet his lips. “I heard the video on the phones. About Special Agent Nadeem’s testimony. I knew that if I let Fisk live, he’d be locked up. And after the FBI let him manipulate them like that, there was no way they’d give him a second chance. I’m not underestimating him, I knew it wouldn’t take much for him to send someone after me, or the people I love. But I also knew for a fact that he wouldn’t be able to wrap his fingers around this city. Not again.”

“You said the city rejected him.”

“Because it _did_. And that… _that_ , Vanessa, is why I’m here.”

“I don’t understand.”

And how that must bother her. “I’ll explain,” he said coldly. “If all I cared about was keeping my friends safe, I wouldn’t be Daredevil. Instead, every time I put on that mask, I choose to put them at risk. Because it’s worth it. The people in this city are worth it.” He stepped closer. “Spiderman was at the docks, intercepting your drugs. People need him out there, protecting them. I’m taking his case. You need to stay away.”

“I’ve no interest in that particular vigilante.”

Well, as long as he had her here…she couldn’t read heartbeats. Couldn’t call his bluff. “I have two demands. If your people ever touch Spiderman, and if you don’t clear the streets of your drug, I’ll be back. And there won’t be a single painting in this gallery that isn’t stained by your blood.”

“You might be overestimating my ability to recall devil’s hell.”

“You’re smart, Vanessa. Smarter than I am. I trust you’ll think of something.”

“As a special favor?” she asked mockingly. “Or in exchange for saving my life?”

He shook his head again. “Neither of those motivations mean anything to you, and I need this to matter. Your husband is responsible for the deaths of so many people. You yourself are threatening so many more. And maybe none of those people matter to you, but they should. Because they matter to me.” He curled his lip. “You haven’t asked about your personal safety yet.”

She folded her arms across her chest in the thin space between them.

“Wilson knows how to protect me.” There wasn’t a hint of doubt in her voice.

How arrogant. “Given that Poindexter would’ve killed you twice now if I hadn’t stopped him,” he said softly, “and given the fact that, well, _I’m_ here…I don’t think that’s true.”

“In that case.” She moved her arms, rested her hands on his shoulders. “I suppose I must protect myself.”

“What—”

Her breath ghosted across his face and it smelled so incredible that he didn’t even notice what she was doing until her lips were against his, tongue flicking inside his mouth. He shoved her back, hard enough that a painting crashed to the ground when she fell into the wall.

“What was that?” He drew a baton.

Groaning, she remained slumped against the wall. Fresh blood matted in her hair. “Don’t worry. You won’t remember any of this.”

“What…” His mouth dried and he tried to wet his lips.

She was on the phone with the police, giving the address. As soon as the call ended, she reached out to stroke the fallen painting. “Find help, Mr. Murdock. Or don’t, but do leave. I’d rather not be framed for your death.”

He moved backwards instinctively as the pieces clicked together in his brain. The smell, the drugs. Her tongue. A shot of icy fear raced through him, mixing with distant hysteria. If _this_ was what did him in, a kiss from Vanessa Fisk…at least the details would die with him.

He reached the window, pulled himself out, then twisted and shimmied up to the roof. So far, so good. He was fine. It was just a hallucinogen, and he firmly chose to believe that heightened senses would help him cling to reality. Besides, the mind controlled the body. He was fine, he was—whoa. He was mildly off-balanced.

He flung one arm out, but there was nothing to stabilize against so he merely listed severely to the left and stopped. Just stopped moving, waiting for the world on fire to coalesce again. Better that than walking off the edge of the—

Agony lanced through his brain at a shrieking siren beneath him. The cops showing up at the gallery with an ambulance in tow. Footsteps running, crunching over broken glass. Finding Vanessa.

Matt blinked and realized he was on his knees with his hands clasped to his ears. Breathing through his nose, he stood back up. Get off this roof, that was the priority. Get off the roof before someone saw him. He wasn’t in this part of Hell’s Kitchen often, and he didn’t _quite_ trust his own perception of where all the roofs began and ended, but his whole life was a leap of faith. What was one more?

So he jumped off the roof in the direction of the setting sun, because the church was far away and Claire lived nowhere near this part of town and he really didn’t want to explain any of this to Karen and Marci’s apartment was almost close.

But as he landed on the next roof, it occurred to him that this wasn’t as simple as begging Foggy to stich him up. This was devil’s hell. Matt sucked in a breath and tried to ignore his own climbing temperature that felt like a sinister countdown. He couldn’t ask Foggy to deal with this.

He double-checked where the edge of the roof was before making the next jump. Hospital. He needed a hospital.

As soon as he landed, the full meaning of the word stormed into his brain. People crying and machines screaming and the sting of alcohol and the stench of fear and the pain, so much pain, and he was nine years old again and he couldn’t _see_. Matt stumbled backwards, away from nothing, and his foot slipped over the edge. He caught himself on a rain gutter, clinging to its slick surface while his stomach flipped and his brain politely informed him that he was five stories up. Assuming he could trust his brain at all.

Which he couldn’t. Pulling himself back onto the semi-stable surface, he got to his feet and inched forward. Someone screamed to his left, so loud that he lashed out reflexively, but he couldn’t feel anything but emptiness. Either it was all in his head, or his senses were so shot through that he couldn’t tell a foot from a mile.

He stopped again, trying to even out his shallow breathing. But there were a thousand distractions. Sounds, mostly. Also his sweat-soaked shirt clinging to him. And someone was _right behind him_.

He whipped around, sliding into a defensive stance and waiting, every muscle tense, for an attack.

Okay. Not real.

Where was he going?

Right. Foggy.

That was their building up ahead, wasn’t it? Foggy and Marci. He could hear them, maybe even smell them. One more jump and he’d be fine. He’d be safe.

Wait, no. Couldn’t…couldn’t do this, couldn’t do this to them, couldn’t force them to deal with this. Couldn’t let them see him like this. Couldn’t draw whatever danger was following him straight to them. Matt curled himself into a ball on their roof, clinging to the sound of their voices and hoping it would be enough.

It wasn’t. His heart was racing too fast, with no signs of slowing down, and if Foggy was going to die—Foggy was dying already, Fisk had a gun to his head and Foggy was dying—what difference did it make if Matt was there, too? At least Foggy wouldn’t be alone. Foggy would rather be with Matt than be alone, right? Maybe?

Maybe Matt was just selfish, but he didn’t give himself the chance to second-guess. He swung over the edge of their roof and slammed inelegantly into the window, wincing at the resulting crash from inside. Foggy was swearing, but then there was a soft, screaming, sliding sound and a gust of warmer air. Everything shifted and the hands that were grabbing at him were definitely not Foggy. Matt struck out blindly, felt Rosco Sweeny’s nose break under his fist.

But that didn’t do anything to stop him from getting maneuvered through some small space, some cramped square with no room to breathe. Claustrophobia clamped around his chest. Matt kicked, trying to find leverage. Something else crashed, but he was still trapped in some kind of box, some kind of prison, and the walls were tightening forever.

 

Foggy

Pain streaked across his nose and up behind his eyes and he kind of wanted to throw Matt back out the window, except Matt…something was wrong with him. Very wrong. He was huddled on the floor in his black mask and everything, curled up around himself and…not breathing?

Well, Foggy’s nose couldn’t get more broken. Pretending to be braver than he felt, he knelt beside his best friend and gingerly touched his fingertips to Matt’s shoulder. “Hey, buddy?”

Matt reacted as if he’d been electrocuted, jolting backwards and lashing out again. He didn’t manage to hit Foggy this time, but he did fall into the shattered glass from the lamp he’d broken. Blood streamed from the cuts in his hands.

A really terrible part of Foggy, the part most connected to the throbbing in his nose, privately thought Matt deserved that. But then Matt made a sound that was full of some emotion Foggy was not used to hearing from him. Because Foggy was used to frustration, used to anger.

But fear?

So Foggy followed with only slightly more caution, and this was not a great idea; cornering Matt when he was like this was in fact a very bad idea, but then Matt made a strangled sound that was so wrecked with terror that Foggy took a risk, grabbed Matt’s bloody hands, and pressed his own face into them.

“Shh,” he whispered. “You know me, don’t you?”

Matt’s fingers fanned across his face, jostling his broken nose. Then whatever part of Matt’s brain was still online must have recognized him, because he pulled Foggy close with such strength that Foggy couldn’t have resisted even if he’d wanted to. Matt buried his face in Foggy’s neck, arms wrapped around him with his hands clenched tight over Foggy’s shirt, shuddering. But he didn’t make any more noise and Foggy wondered exactly how much the effort to stay silent was costing him.

Then the front door opened and his head snapped up so fast that it cracked against Foggy’s chin. Scrambling to his feet, he let out a low grunt that was more like a growl. Foggy got up much more fluidly and put his hands against Matt’s chest. “Easy! It’s just Marci.”

Matt’s head tilted up and to the side, and he flinched once as he tried to make sense of…whatever.

“Just Marci,” Foggy repeated clearly, sliding his hand carefully up Matt’s chest to try to feel his pulse. And yep, it was racing. But just as startling was the searing heat of Matt’s skin.

Marci’s heels _clacked_ behind him. “Foggy Bear, what—”

“Something’s wrong with him.” Foggy pushed back the mask and gulped at the sight of Matt’s dilated eyes flitting around.

“I can see that.” Marci set down her bag and put her hand on Foggy’s head. “Also with your nose. Did he do that?”

“I’m trying not to pay attention to it right now.” Foggy kept his hand on Matt’s face, hoping the contact would ground him, but the fact that he wasn’t reacting to Marci at all anymore made his stomach flip.

“Fogs.” Matt’s whisper was broken.

“Yeah, it’s me. It’s just me. You’re okay.”

“Fogs, where—” He flinched, arm jerking upwards. Not a punch but a terrifying, slashing motion. Did he think he had a _knife?_

Impulsively, Foggy grabbed Matt’s hand, forcing his own fingers between Matt’s clenched ones. “Just me. What happened?”

Matt’s hand gripped Foggy’s so hard it was a miracle the bones didn’t break. “Fogs, Fogs, Foggy—”

“Marci, get my phone and call Claire,” Foggy ordered. “Or Maggie, if she doesn’t answer.” He turned his attention back to his best friend. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Breathe.”

To his credit, Matt seemed to be trying. Just not doing a great job at it.

Suddenly, Marci was crouching beside him. “They’re not picking up.”

Foggy used his free hand—the one not caught in a death-vice by Matt—to slowly remove Matt’s burner from his pocket. “Try this phone.” He’d be super offended if either Claire or Maggie answered the burner after ignoring Foggy’s call, but he could complain about after this—whatever was happening here—was over.

“Still nothing,” Marci reported a minute later.

Foggy swore under his breath, but now that Matt was holding his hand, he was at least not flailing around so much. Matt was shaking, but somehow it seemed like that was as much from the strain of holding himself together as from…whatever else.

His wide-open eyes darted around the room. “This—this isn’t real. Right? Foggy?”

What wasn’t real? “I’m real. I’m here. You’re in my apartment.”

Matt’s eyes snapped closed and he squeezed Foggy’s hand even tighter.

Marci had kicked off her heals; now she crouched a safe distance away, examining Matt like he was a rare specimen of some endangered species. “What do you think it is?”

Knowing Matt, it was the worst-case scenario. “Probably devil’s hell, even though I _explicitly_ told him to stay away from that stuff. Google the symptoms?”

“On it.” She disappeared to find her computer.

He should’ve looked into this ages ago. Hadn’t really wanted to, though. Like if he didn’t research the drug, maybe the drug would never find him.

Well, it found him. Through Matt. Pretty much everything bad found him through Matt.

Foggy pushed Matt’s hair out of his eyes. “You’re lucky I like you.”

Matt didn’t respond, unless you count violent flinching, but Foggy was pretty sure that wasn’t directed at him.

“Hallucinogen,” Marci reported, sticking her head out of the bedroom. “Rapid heartrate, sensitive to sounds—but isn’t that already his thing?”

“We have any earmuffs?” Foggy asked. “And a wet cloth to get his temperature down?”

She hastened to collect the stuff and Foggy was applauding himself for coming up with two good ideas until he discovered that they were Very Bad Ideas.

Matt struck out with his fist as soon as the cool rag touched his skin, scooting backwards to press himself against the wall. Foggy approached more slowly with the earmuffs—huge and fluffy with pale blue ribbon for when Marci was feeling magically wintery—and Matt must’ve really been out of it because he didn’t notice until Foggy had slipped the muffs firmly over his ears.

He reacted immediately, but not violently. His eyes flared wide with panic and he froze, utterly immobile except for his chest rising and falling as his breaths grew more shallow and rapid by the second.

“Foggy…” Marci said warningly.

“Not good,” Foggy agreed, but before he could take the earmuffs back, it was too late. Matt’s eyes fluttered closed and he slumped sideways. Swearing again, Foggy pressed his fingers to his neck to feel the thin but present pulse. He breathed a silent prayer of relief.

“Well.” Marci cleared her throat from behind him. “Maybe it’s better this way.”

Foggy bit his lip as he stared at his unconscious best friend and answered honestly. “I have no idea.”

 

“Fog?” Matt’s voice was cracked.

Foggy was wide awake in a flash, jolting up right with a groan as his neck twinged in complaint. He’d fallen asleep on the floor, apparently. Marci had draped a blanket over him and a damp towel over Matt. They'd removed the earmuffs, obviously. “I’m right here. What happened?”

“What…” Matt echoed vaguely. He blinked a couple times. “Could I get some water?”

Foggy started to get up, but Marci was already in the kitchen, filling a glass with her lips pursed. She offered it to Matt, who moaned as he pulled himself into a sitting position so he could gulp down the liquid.

“Couch?” Foggy suggested.

Blinking blearily, Matt set the glass aside; Marci promptly swooped to refill it, and they all pretended not to notice how Matt flinched away from the sudden movement. He pressed upwards against the wall until he was, technically, standing. But his head hung and he kept one arm around his stomach. Foggy put his arm around him before he did something dumb, like try to stand completely on his own, and Matt leaned heavily against him—geeze, they weren’t kidding about muscle mass being heavy—until he could fall onto the couch. Matt was still shaking and Foggy couldn’t tell if it was physiological or…not.

“Okay,” Foggy began, standing over him. “Where were you last night? What just happened?”

“Slow down,” Matt begged. “I…where am I?”

Foggy glanced over his shoulder to see Marci’s wide green eyes shooting from him to Matt and back to him. “You’re in my apartment,” he said, keeping his voice even. “It’s just Marci and me here, and let me tell you, we were planning a _spectacular_ date night before you came crashing through the window.”

Matt half-turned towards the window, as if expecting to find it still open. “When?”

“About six hours ago,” Marci answered over the sound of something pouring. She walked into the living room a moment later, passing Foggy a glass of wine and perching on the edge of a chair with her own glass.

“I don’t…” Matt’s voice tightened. “Six…six hours? Are you sure? I don’t remember.”

“Give it time.” Foggy tried not to sound freaked out. “I’m sure you’ll remember everything soon.”

“Yeah? Because none of the other victims ever remembered anything.”

“I _told_ you not to mess with that stuff!”

He licked his lips. “I wasn’t.”

“Thought you couldn’t remember anything,” Foggy pointed out.

“I…can’t.” He licked his lips again. “But I don’t _think_ I was looking for it, I think I just…” He trailed off unhappily.

“Back up a sec.” Marci sounded incredulous. “Are you saying you got injected? Aren’t you supposed to be a kung fu expert or whatever?”

“Wasn’t…” Matt stood up unsteadily, which Foggy thought was a supremely bad and pointless idea. “Wasn’t an injection. It’s, uh…” He visibly ran his tongue under the edge of his teeth, nose wrinkled. “In my mouth? I don’t remember. Wasn’t very much of it, anyway. I just got slightly dosed.”

“Slightly dosed,” Foggy repeated. That made sense, at least, since he seemed to be bouncing back after only six hours. But it didn’t explain how he’d gotten _slightly dosed_ in the first place.

Marci’s eyes narrowed. “Did you eat something new? Drink anything uncovered? Breathe in any suspicious gasses?”

His brow furrowed with concentration, but then he apparently gave up and fell limply backwards into the couch. “Don’t remember. Can I just…” He swallowed.

“You can stay here,” Foggy said immediately.

“No, I’m fine, I meant—”

“You can _stay here_ ,” Foggy emphasized.

Marci stood up and headed down the hall. “I’ll make up the couch. Foggy, ask him what he wants for breakfast.”

From the look on Matt’s face, the thought of breakfast was not exactly appealing. “I’m fine,” he insisted. “I can go home, I just—”

“Alternatively,” Foggy cut in, trying to sound cheerful, “you could stay here. Slumber party it up. Wanna invite Karen?”

“No,” he said quickly.

Marci reappeared quickly, a sure sign that she thought she’d spotted gossip. She dumped the blankets on the couch. “Why don’t you want to see Karen?”

“Maybe because I can’t see _anything_ ,” Matt snapped, drooping down among the blankets. “This smells horrible, by the way. Fake lavender is revolting. Invest in new fabric softener.”

“Need I remind you that you just broke my lamp and my fiancé’s nose,” Marci said coolly. “Do not upset me.”

Matt didn’t answer, just burrowed deeper down, which meant the blankets couldn’t actually smell that bad. He was practically horizontal, nestled among them with his face pressed into the soft fabric.

Foggy glanced apologetically at Marci. “Let me deal with him?”

“My pleasure,” she muttered, snatching her wine glass and stalking into the bedroom.

Foggy studied the lump of his best friend among the blankets. Wondered what Matt was thinking right now. Wondered how soon Matt would stay here before taking off to lick his wounds elsewhere. “Buddy?”

Matt made an exhausted but vaguely inquisitive sound.

“Are you okay?”

A pause. Then: “It wasn’t real.”

So not the question. Foggy tapped Matt’s knee. “Budge over.”

Another hesitation. Then Matt shifted marginally, just enough for Foggy to scoot onto the couch beside him. “I’m okay,” Matt insisted, raising his head slightly and aiming his eyes towards Foggy.

Like that was supposed to be convincing. “Maybe you can tell me about all the stuff that…wasn’t real,” Foggy suggested carefully.

Matt’s eyes dropped away. “Why.”

“Because…maybe it’ll help?”

“You’re not my therapist.”

Classic. Well, Foggy wasn’t going to push. He was too tired for it, and besides, pushing might work when Karen tried it, or Maggie, but it didn’t usually work when Foggy tried it. So he just settled deeper into the couch and it was kind of sort of an accident that his hand found Matt’s under the blankets.

Matt lowered his head back down again. A minute passed, and then another. Foggy would’ve thought Matt was asleep except for the tension clearly visible in his neck.

Suddenly, he spoke. “Fogs, I was so scared.”

With the utmost care, Foggy stayed silent.

“Someone was gonna kill you, or Karen, or I…I was…” His breathing quickened again.

“It wasn’t real,” Foggy said, gently but firmly.

“But it could be,” Matt said raggedly. “So easily.”

Foggy rubbed his thumb over the back of Matt’s hand. “How?”

Matt answered immediately, like he’d been thinking this for ages and just needed an excuse to reveal it. “Too many people know. About me. Brett. Marci. Peter. Micah. Even Ella…how hard would it be for her to slip up? And then it’s a straight shot from me to you, or to Karen, or my m-mom…”

Foggy squeezed his hand. “We’re being careful. We all are.”

He looked up again, but not to try to convince Foggy of anything. Instead, his eyes almost seemed to search Foggy’s face. “But what am I gonna do if something happens to you?”

“You’re gonna do whatever you can to take care of us,” Foggy said gently, “and we’re gonna do everything we can to take care of us too. It’s not all on you.”

For a moment, Matt’s sightless eyes seemed to lock onto Foggy’s. Then, with a tired sigh, he lowered his head back onto the blankets.

“Matt,” Foggy whispered. “Are you really okay now?”

He closed his eyes. “No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a mock trial competition first thing tomorrow with multiple lines stolen from Daredevil. Wish me luck?
> 
> As always, your comments give this story its energy and direction! Thank you so much!


	12. Unusual

Foggy

He woke to find Matt’s arm thrown across him and Matt’s face pressed against his side. For one heart-stopping moment, Foggy’s brain interpreted Matt’s stillness as death. But no, Matt’s chest was rising and falling, albeit almost indiscernibly. He was okay. Physically, at least.

Foggy’s neck hurt. Also his nose. He needed ice. Should’ve thought of it last night, but other things had seemed way more important. Matt, however, would _flip out_ if he realized Foggy had neglected his broken nose in order to take care of him. So Foggy wriggled carefully out from under Matt’s arm and shuffled into the kitchen. Marci was had already left the house, so he sent her a quick text asking her to bring some of his files back from the office if she had the chance. He was working from home today until he was completely, absolutely, one hundred percent sure that Matt was okay.

After swallowing some ibuprofen, he returned to the living room and sat on the couch opposite Matt, holding the ice pack to his nose. And then he just stared at his best friend, a little sadly. It could probably be considered creepy, too, since Matt was still asleep.

Whatever. No witnesses.

But last night? That was bizarre and Foggy had a thousand questions that he didn’t think would be answered any time soon. Like, how was it that Matt had gotten dosed but seemed otherwise uninjured? It wasn’t like people could get the jump on him. And why had he chosen Marci’s apartment? He was almost never on this side of town to begin with. Foggy could understand, maybe, if he hadn’t wanted Karen to see him like this—that was sad and unhealthy but understandable. But why not go to Claire or Sister Maggie who were, you know, actually maybe sort of qualified to deal with this?

Foggy rubbed at his eyes. At least Matt looked peaceful. And it was…huh, eight in the morning. He texted Karen to let her know that he and Matt would both be late, and tried to dodge her answering texts asking what was wrong. Because what Matt experienced last night wasn’t just physical and there was no way he was sharing details about that with Karen without Matt’s permission. He’d learned that much from the whole fiasco with Karen and Stone.

Then Foggy’s eyes narrowed. Matt looked peaceful right now, sure—sleeping so deeply that he was barely even moving. But when Foggy squinted, he could see the faint signs of tear tracks on his cheek.

“Sorry, buddy,” Foggy whispered, wondering if Matt had woken up at all during the night and, if he had, why he hadn’t woken Foggy up too. Except there was really no point in wondering about that. He knew why.

The front door opened and closed. Marci slipped into the room and set a thick file on the coffee table. “I hope this is what you needed because I’m not going back to your office.”

“I know you’re allergic to the lack of steel.” Foggy flipped through what she’d brought. There wasn’t actually that much useful stuff in the file, but she’d included all the _Bugle_ articles he and Matt had collected.

“Have fun treasure hunting.” She cupped his face in her hand. “Fix your nose.”

He waved the bag of ice at her.

She just jerked her chin at Matt’s sleeping form. “And tell him to apologize. Write a list. I expect apologies for your nose, your upcoming chiropractor bill, and our ruined date night.”

“Sure thing,” Foggy lied smoothly.

“I’ve gotta go do some discovery. With me luck.” She kissed the top of his head, and left to conquer the world.

Adjusting the bag of ice, Foggy opened the file and started picking through articles. The conclusion he’d already reached was that Spiderman was not nearly as violent as Matt. Even though the author of the _Bugle_ articles clearly despised Spiderman with a passion, he couldn’t come up with any corroborated facts for any of his allegations of Spiderman’s brutality. A handful of people interviewed agreed that Spiderman was annoying when he left webs up all around Queens, but even then it didn’t seem like the webs lasted very long. It seemed irrelevant to Foggy—until he noted the third mention of a backpack webbed up in an alleyway.

Setting aside why the _Bugle_ thought writing about webbed-up backpacks was important, Foggy re-read those stories. The backpacks were mentioned off-hand, but one article came with a picture. The backpack was neon green, which did not match another interviewee’s description of the backpack as “the ugliest orange he’d ever seen.”

So maybe the criminals Spiderman was chasing liked to use backpacks. Maybe Spiderman was stealing backpacks from homeless people. Maybe the backpacks held drugs and should’ve been recovered by the police except that curious passersby noticed them first. Maybe.

But Foggy was Matt’s best friend. Since learning the truth about Daredevil, Foggy had also learned the truth about Matt’s cane problem. Specifically, that if Matt heard something suspicious during the day, he was inclined to throw his canes into an alley and go running off without them. Apparently. Well, it was Matt’s life and Matt’s money and Foggy had enough things to lecture him about without lecturing him on responsible cane usage but the _point_ was…Foggy could recognize the signs.

He was about eighty percent confident that those backpacks stashed away in alleys belonged to Spiderman.

Which made him about seventy percent confident that Spiderman was no older than a college student. It didn’t seem so unusual for New York. In fact, in a world of Asgardian gods and blind ninjas, Foggy didn’t quite want to rule out the possibility that Spiderman was actually a high school student.

Strike that. Foggy very much wanted to rule out the possibility that Spiderman was a high school student. But he couldn’t rule it out. Not without a thorough investigation.

At that moment, Matt stirred on the couch, making a low sound as he shifted. Foggy immediately stuffed the articles back into the file and slipped the file under the chair, poised on the edge of his seat to intervene if (when) his friend tried to do something stupid.

The second Matt’s eyes fluttered open, his hand came up to scrub at his face, rubbing the evidence of tears away. He grimaced as he sat upright and his voice was a thin croak. “What time is it?”

At least he wasn’t parkouring away already. “Good morning, sunshine. It’s just after eight.”

The grimace intensified. "I’m sorry, I didn’t—we’ve gotta get to work, I need to…” He groped around the couch, though Foggy wasn’t sure what he was looking for.

“Hey, it’s okay. We don’t have any meetings this morning and I told Karen we’d be late.”

“But…” He looked very confused by this information.

“It’s okay,” Foggy repeated. “Everything’s okay.”

“Yeah, no, I know. I just…” His head tilted. “Why am I in your apartment?”

So Foggy explained as best he could, which was obviously not a great explanation, and Matt wasn’t able to offer any new facts to fill in the holes.

“Devil’s hell, huh?” he said when Foggy was finished. “I guess that tracks.”

“With what?” Foggy asked carefully.

His face suggested he’d said too much. Shrugging, he got to his feet. “Just, you know…last night wasn’t exactly the best night I’ve had in recent memory.”

“So you do remember something?”

“No,” he said too quickly. “Thanks for putting up with me, though. I’m sorry I…ended up here.” And before Foggy could insist that he absolutely didn’t need to apologize for that, he’d retrieved his mask from the floor and stuffed it into a pocket. “Do you have a jacket I can borrow?”

“I just told you we don’t have to rush to the office.”

“A jacket, Foggy. Please.”

Foggy stood up to face him. “Where are you going?”

He raised his eyebrows like that was a ridiculous question. “Home.”

Folding his arms across his chest, Foggy let his body language communicate exactly what he thought of that idea.

Matt’s jaw tightened. “Shower.”

“There’s one right here.”

“I have to let my dog out.”

That was actually a good argument and Foggy couldn’t think of a rebuttal. He sighed, defeated, and went into the bedroom to retrieve an old Colombia sweatshirt.

Matt accepted it as soon as Foggy thrust it at him, but instead of pulling it over his head, he pressed his face into it as if breathing it in.

“Uh, Matt? What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he said, donning it and drawing the hood up. “Thanks.”

“You look like an idiot.”

His mouth quirked. “Par for the course.” He moved towards the door but stopped with his hand on the knob. “Really, Foggy. Thank you.”

Foggy swallowed his automatic sarcastic response. “You’re welcome. Be safe getting home, okay?”

He licked his lips. “Yeah. See you.”

The door opened and shut and he was gone. Foggy let out a slow breath. He still wasn’t sure he’d handled any of that right, but it was too late now. If there was a silver lining, it was that Matt wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t want to go through anything like this again, so he’d be more careful until devil’s hell was off the streets.

Right?

 

Matt

He pushed the door open to his apartment and moved around Frank as she bounced at his feet. He didn’t have time to properly pay attention to her. He had to get to the office as soon as possible, make sure…make sure everything really was fine. Of course, if he just moved a bit quicker getting ready, he arguably would have time to spend at least a minute or two cuddling Frank. But he still kind of felt like he was dreaming, even though he was almost entirely confident that no traces of the drug remained in his system. So he drifted lethargically through the apartment, going through the motions of getting ready and trying to keep his mind from replaying…everything.

Not that he could remember everything. But anxiety still vibrated in his gut and he couldn’t banish it. Every time he reminded himself that the nightmares had been just that, his brain pointed out that he’d still gotten himself dosed and if it happened once, it could happen again. And when he argued to himself that it was just part of the job, his brain pointed out how self-absorbed he’d been to take advantage of Foggy like that. He’d crashed right through Foggy’s window with no thought as to whether Foggy appreciated his drugged friend interrupting what should’ve been a pleasant date night with his fiancée. Guilt joined the anxiety and Matt skipped breakfast.

He took a taxi to work, partly because he was already running so late and partly because of the disconcerting fact that although he could feel the sun on his skin, he couldn’t quite feel its warmth. Shrinking his world down to the backseat of a cab was much more manageable.

Besides, he had his own private sun waiting for him at the office.

Karen was there. She was fine. The things he thought had happened to her only happened in his head and he _knew_ that. Hearing her heart beating was still blessed confirmation. The fog cleared in his mind as he opened the front door.

“I thought you guys were coming in late?” she asked, getting up to greet him with a kiss.

He accepted it, but he was much more interested in wrapping his arms around her and reassuring himself that, at least for this one moment, nothing could hurt her. “Just Foggy. I’m here.”

Her voice was muffled by his shoulder. “I can see that.” She tipped her head back as if studying his face. “What happened?”

If he told her the truth, he’d have to spend the next half hour at least answering her questions. “Can I tell you later?”

“Later as in…tonight?”

Sighing, he closed his eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Can you at least tell me how much I should be worrying about you right now?”

He grinned tiredly. “On a scale of one to ten?”

“Seven is the default,” she warned. “Just so you know.”

Much too high. “Well, you can stay at seven. I’m fine.” He tilted her chin up for another kiss, then stepped into his own office to drop his bag on his chair. “Which cases are you working on?”

“Spiderman.” He heard her perch on the edge of her desk, pulling her laptop closer and clicking a few times. When she spoke again, it was at so fast a rate that he could barely understand it. “So he’s sixteen, and that new law last year lowered the age of juveniles, but trying him as a juvenile means no jury, and I’m thinking a jury trial would actually work in our favor since he’s Spiderman and everyone loves him. So if it’s up to us, I guess it’s a balance between a jury trial and his privacy, which is easier to protect if he’s not tried as an adult.”

Reemerging from his office, Matt blinked. How was it that someone like her even looked twice at someone like him? “Since when did you become an expert on the juvenile court process?”

“Last night,” she said smugly. “We could also argue for diversion, but that sounds like a long shot.”

Diversion required a juvenile to adhere to certain programs and usually resulted in dropped charges. Unfortunately, diversion was hard to get if the offense was a felony. “We can ask for it,” Matt agreed, “but I think we need to plan on going through the normal process. In which case I think we need to push for a jury trial. No one except the prosecution wants to convict Spiderman. That’s almost as bad as convicting Captain America.”

“Ooh, speaking of. Got a phone call from Stark Industries this morning while you were still out.”

Matt groaned. “Of course you did.”

“No, it’s fine. I explained that he needs to stay away, for publicity reasons. However.” Her voice turned sly. “I didn’t say no to the check he wrote our firm.”

“Wait, what?”

“Already deposited.”

“Huh,” Matt said.

Her head cocked. “That was anticlimactic. Did I forget to mention the check is from _Stark Industries?_ Do I need to tell you the exact number of zeroes?”

He forced a smile. “No, you’re right. Wow. That’s great.”

There was a silence wherein he assumed she was deciding whether to call him on his completely malapropos response. Mercifully, she let him get away with it. “When’s the indictment?”

He ran his hand over his watch. “The next twenty-four hours. I’ll call in, see what they’re thinking. I should visit, too, and make sure he’s holding up all right.”

“Mmm,” she said appreciatively.

He raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“Nothing.” But she slid off her desk and took his hand, rubbing her thumb over his skin. “You’re just very thoughtful and I really, really like it.”

“Karen, no one’s going to make me a saint for thinking a sixteen-year-old shouldn’t be left alone in jail.”

“Shush. I’m complimenting you.”

He was about to return the favor when he heard a familiar heartbeat outside. Trying not to give away his unease, he barely tilted his head.

“Matt,” Karen said immediately.

He gritted his teeth. “We have a visitor.”

“Not a good one, I’m guessing.”

He didn’t bother raising his voice. “A very unwelcome one.”

Stone walked through the front door. “Good morning to you, as well. Did you know the little girl likes to climb on roofs? Good to see you again, Miss Page. How are you?”

Matt shifted between Karen and Stone. “What are you doing here?”

“Just letting you know what a splendid influence you’ve been having on a very impressionable seven-year-old. She’s going to get herself killed pretending to be you.”

“How do you know?” Matt demanded.

“She might have fallen off the roof if I hadn’t been there,” Stone drawled.

“When were you there last? Is she all right?” Because his drug-induced fears had certainly not neglected Ella.

“Thanks to me, yes, and no thanks to you. Tell her parents to tell her to stay off the roof.”

“Why do you care?” Karen asked, using that particular tone of voice that meant she knew something that was going to get her into trouble.

“I’ll take care of it,” Matt said swiftly. “Thanks for the advice.” He brushed past Stone to hold open the door. Not that he expected Stone to be so easily gotten rid of.

And Stone met his expectations. “What are you two working on? Tracking down that new drug?”

Matt cleared his throat. “No. Spiderman was arrested.”

Stone ignored this. “Devil’s hell, though.” He inhaled. “You’ve had some excitement, Matty, haven’t you?” He started to move closer, stopped by Matt’s hand against his chest.

Great. “Leave.”

“You don’t think you might be overcommitted, trying to deal with devil’s hell and the kid’s legal case?” Shrugging, Stone slipped past Matt’s hand and across the threshold into the hallway. “Well, you know how to find me if you decide you want an ally.” He inclined his head. “As for you, Miss Page, feel free to steal my number from Matty’s phone. I miss our meetings.”

Karen flipped him off.

Trying not to scowl, Matt shut the door, then held up a finger until Stone was likely out of earshot. Karen hovered beside him and started talking as soon as Matt lowered his hand.

“Devil’s hell, Matt? Really? _That’s_ what happened to you this morning?”

“I’m fine. I was at Foggy’s and it’s out of my system.”

She exhaled gustily. “You know that doesn’t help, right? Why didn’t you call me?”

He stuck his hands in his pockets. This conversation needed privacy and plenty of alcohol. “I don’t remember, Karen. I don’t remember anything, that’s how it _works_ , so there’s no point in interrogating me.”

Her teeth caught on her lip as she bit down on it, probably pushing aside a thousand arguments that he was not prepared to counter. “But…you’re okay now?”

He just said he was fine. Although, to be fair, he understood why she might not believe him. He took a deep breath and moved his hands to her shoulders. “All right, look. I know you have questions and I know you wish I’d told you. I’m sorry I didn’t. I can’t even tell you why I didn’t, because I literally don’t remember. So could you just…” He broke off, not sure what exactly he was even asking for.

But whatever he had said must’ve been good enough, because there was a small smile in her voice as she brushed her hand along his cheek. “I get it. I’ll back off. And if you do remember, or you just want to talk about it, I’m here, all right?”

He had a therapist for that, and a mother, and the last thing he wanted was to force her to deal with all his irrational fears that had been bad enough before they’d been artificially intensified. But she was trying. The least he could do was try, too. He rested his forehead against hers. “Noted.”

 

Foggy

He closed his laptop and swore under his breath. So there were a lot of college and high school kids in Queens. But there weren’t very many who had connections to Tony Stark. And, fortunately for Foggy and unfortunately for a Mr. Peter Parker, Tony Stark was not terribly subtle.

Foggy still wasn’t sure if the Stark internship was ever a real internship or if it had been dreamt up on the spot to cover for Spiderman’s trip to help fight Captain America. Regardless, it pointed anyone who was looking directly to sixteen-year-old Peter Parker.

Yep. Spiderman—their new client—was sixteen years old.

And Matt had known.

And not said anything.

Because why let your best friend and law partner in on an insignificant fact like that?

He texted Karen to let her know that she shouldn’t expect him at the office at all, but assured her he was totally fine. Then he dressed in a suit and packed up his work bag and took a cab to the precinct.

“Franklin Nelson, here to see my client,” he told the officer at the desk, and after a brief wait was escorted down the hall to one of the meeting rooms. Foggy stepped inside and there he was. Spiderman in the flesh, but outside of the suit. He was wearing an oversized NYPD t-shirt, brown hair a mess, shadows lining huge eyes that locked immediately onto Foggy. Foggy smiled as warmly as he could. “Hey, there.”

“Mr. Nelson?” Peter asked hesitantly.

“I hear you’ve met my partner, Matt Murdock.”

“He gave me your card a while ago.”

Any other day, Foggy would’ve preened in delight at the thought of Spiderman carrying around his business card. For now, he concentrated on pulling up a chair across from the kid. “How’re they treating you in here?”

“Good,” he said quickly. “What’s, um…is something wrong? Is your, um, partner okay?"

Foggy resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “He’s fine. I just wanted to meet you myself.” For once. Since Peter was, you know, his client.

"What happened to your nose?"

"Walked into a door," Foggy answered promptly, and waited to see if that only worked for blind people.

Sure enough, Peter did not look convinced. "Ouch. Anyway. Hi. I’m Spiderman.”

“If we’re using our cool names, I’m Foggy.”

Peter’s eyebrows drew closer together. “Foggy?”

“You’d go by anything but Franklin too, if that was what your parents forced upon you.”

“I…guess?” he asked, obviously not sure what the polite response was.

Because of course Spiderman, a high school kid with superpowers but also wearing handcuffs, was worried about manners. Foggy felt his irritation at Matt fading slightly because, yes, Peter Parker was clearly someone to be protected at all costs. Foggy took a deep breath. “All right, Peter—”

“Who’s Peter?” Peter blurted out.

Foggy raised his eyebrows. “Not bad, but try for less panic and more confusion next time if you really want to sell it.”

“Sell what?” Peter asked—confusedly.

Fast learner, this one. “Matt didn’t give you away, I promise. Which was kind of a stupid move, since my ability to defend you should be the top priority right now and knowing who you actually are is a pretty crucial fact. But I get why he was, you know, nervous.”

For a moment, Peter just narrowed his eyes at Foggy, who felt uncomfortable. He was pretty sure mind-reading wasn’t a Spiderman power, but it did feel like a general teenager power. Then Peter snorted. “Matt doesn’t get nervous.”

Ha. Ha, ha. The young padawan had much to learn. “First things first. I’m also your lawyer, so anything you tell me stays confidential. I’m also much friendlier than Matt, and generally funnier, so you can tell me whatever you want and I promise to respond like a human being instead of like a—”

“Like a grumpy dad?” Peter suggested.

Foggy felt his eyes widen. “I was thinking more like a stoic ninja, since I assume you got to know his ninja side first, right?” He cleared his throat. “Anyway. Setting all the legal stuff aside, I need to make sure you’re not getting cut off from the rest of your life.”

“Matt already took care of that. He talked to my aunt and she’s getting me excused from school.”

Foggy frowned. “Does this involve access to homework that you’d be missing otherwise?”

Peter’s eyes turned suspicious. “No…”

“Okay, I’ll fix that so you don’t fall behind while you’re in here. Obviously, I’ll keep arguing for bail, but…”

“But I’m a genetically altered threat,” he said gloomily. “If I have to be in here, I don’t get why I have to do homework.”

Foggy didn’t bother trying to convince him. “What about your friends?”

He stiffened. “What about them?”

“Do any of them know who you are?”

“One,” he said carefully.

Foggy nodded, relieved. “Great. I can talk to him, if you like. Let him know what’s going on and what the game plan is.” Also offer some commiseration, something Foggy was uniquely qualified to provide.

Peter, however, did not burst into thankfulness. “What are you gonna tell him?”

“That he won’t be able to see you for a while,” Foggy said slowly, “but that my partner and I are doing everything we can to help you return to your life.”

“What about my friends who _don’t_ know about…you know.” He waved his hand around. “Spiderman.”

“I can talk to that friend of yours who does know. Turn him into an ambassador, basically, so he can come up with the most realistic explanation for why you’re MIA.” Peter still didn’t look convinced, so Foggy pushed on. “Better than letting them think you just _chose_ to drop out of their lives, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think there’s any good explanation, though,” Peter said awkwardly, like he privately thought Foggy was stupid and was trying not to show it. “Phones are a thing, and if I was going somewhere without internet, I would’ve told them.”

“It’s not gonna be perfect, but at least it’s something.”

“It’ll just confuse them more,” Peter insisted.

Foggy sighed deeply and folded his hands across the table. “Did Matt tell you much about me?”

Peter shook his head. “Sorry.”

Foggy waved this off. “Matt likes to keep the different parts of his life separate. Actually, I’m still figuring out how much of that is a preference instead of a necessity. He’s not the _most_ open book in the world, you know?”

Peter shrugged.

“We were friends for years before I ever knew he was Daredevil. And I didn’t find out because he decided to tell me, I found out because—” It occurred to Foggy that maybe Matt wouldn’t be pleased for his new protégé to know about that particular near-death experience. “I found out on my own. So then I freaked out and got drunk and basically cursed him out for, like, three hours straight before leaving him alone. He almost ended our friendship, and then I almost ended our friendship, and…” Foggy broke off. He’d had a point to make, somewhere.

Peter was nodding along, but his face was bemused and mildly uncomfortable.

“My point is, when I was yelling him, it wasn’t just about all the scary violence, although, yeah, there’s that. But even when we got past why it is he does what he does, the way he does it, we couldn’t so easily get past the fact that he’d lied to me. Over and over again. I didn’t care so much about the logistics of it, I cared because the whole thing just felt like a massive betrayal. Bigger than anything I’d ever known, and my life is _riddled_ with betrayal.”

Not really, unless you could that one time his ex-best friend in high school asked out his crush at summer camp.

But Peter was chewing on his lip, looking like maybe some of this was sinking in.

“Your friends don’t need to know the details. And if you can’t give them an explanation that actually makes total sense, fine. But at the end of the day, it’s on you to convince them that you care about them. Maybe there’s not a lot you can do right now, but as someone who is now something of an expert  on being best friends with a superhero, please believe me that _anything_ is better than nothing.”

“Not with Michelle,” Peter argued, like Foggy was supposed to know who that was. “If I tell her anything, she’ll figure the whole thing out.”

“Maybe,” Foggy said calmly. “Maybe not. But which would be worse—her getting suspicious and maybe even figuring out who you are, or her walking out of your life because she…” He pressed his mouth into a line. Do not project sad memories. This was about Peter. “Doesn’t think you want her to be there at all?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys thank you for all your good luck wishes with mock trial! My team got 2nd place and I was invited to join the school's official team, so next year I get to do mock trial for realzies.


	13. Keep Pursuing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you guys like dialogue? I hope you like dialogue.

Matt

Assault in the first and second degrees. Honestly, it could have been worse. At least the DA wasn’t accusing Peter of homicide. At least with the indictment out of the way, they could focus on requesting the Brady material and building a case.

And keeping out the evidence the prosecution wanted to use to build their case. Tower, apparently, had gotten his hands on some of the same _Bugle_ articles Matt and Foggy had been pouring over and now he wanted clearance to use the articles if Peter’s case went to trial. Matt, taking the lead at the hearing, was trying to be subtle in his fury. It would be one thing if Tower found some damning evidence about Peter’s involvement at the actual crime.

But this? This was trying to sneak _libel_ into a criminal proceeding where Peter’s identity and liberty were both on the line.

“Any objections as to the admissibility of these articles?” Judge Bryant asked. She smelled of breath mints and moth balls and sounded bored enough that Matt wasn’t surprised she’d been assigned this case—she clearly would not be swayed in either direction by strong personal opinions about Spiderman.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Matt said immediately. “The defense motions to exclude the newspaper articles which consist of pure hearsay according to _Young v. Fleary_. The articles also include hearsay within hearsay,” he added, just to emphasize the point.

“Which articles are you referring to?”

Matt resisted the urge to grit his teeth. “All of them, Your Honor.”

Judge Bryant turned her head towards the prosecution. “Your response?”

Tower cleared his throat. “These articles have already been authenticated, Your Honor, and they are not hearsay because they’re given not for the truth of the statements in the articles but to offer evidence of the defendant’s reputation, regardless of whether the specific allegations are true.”

Tightening his grip on his cane, Matt lifted his chin. “In which case I maintain my hearsay objection because reputation based on out-of-court statements hinges on an assumption of the truth of the specific acts mentioned in the articles, and I also add a 404a objection. The prosecution is trying to use evidence of the defendant’s past acts to show that he has a propensity for similar conduct in the current case, which is unallowed.”

“Mr. Murdock," the judge began,"are you planning on offering evidence as to the defendant’s character?”

That would open the door for the prosecution to attack Peter’s character in response to Matt’s attempts to bolster it. “No, Your Honor. I’m not going anywhere _near_ there because no character traits of the defendant are an element of his charges.”

Tower made a low scoffing sound, probably too quiet for anyone else to have heard. “Your Honor, this evidence also goes towards showing the defendant’s motive, opportunity, intent—”

Matt felt a flash of sharp heat. “If the prosecution wants to—”

“Don’t interrupt,” Judge Bryant rebuked him. She gestured at Tower. “Go on.”

Tower radiated satisfaction. “Again, the articles in question aren’t being used to establish the defendant’s character, but for other admissible purposes under 404b2.”

Now the judge turned to Matt. “Mr. Murdock?”

“If the prosecution wants to use the articles for those purposes,” he said, speaking slowly and clearly to hide the way he was practically vibrating with anger, “I reassert my hearsay objection. The prosecution wants to use specific statements to suggest something about the defendant’s location and state of mind at the time of various crimes, which _absolutely_ is relying on the truth of the statements asserted in the newspaper.”

Judge Bryant held up a hand to stop Tower from responding, and leafed slowly through the articles on her desk. It felt like it took about five hours. “I’m inclined to agree with Mr. Murdock,” she said at last. “The newspapers will be excluded on the ground of hearsay.”

Tower knew better than to keep arguing.

Pushing the newspapers towards Tower, she leaned back in her chair. “Anything else?”

Anyone could see she wanted nothing more than a lunch break. Matt smiled stiffly. “Nothing from the defense, Your Honor.”

Her chair creaked as she looked at Tower, who hastily agreed, stuffing the articles into his bag. The judge pushed her chair back. “Then I await your next round of motions.”

She did not sound excited at the prospect.

Matt joined Foggy in packing up their stuff. “That was appalling,” he seethed under his breath. “I can’t believe Tower tried to dodge a hearsay objection with an _authentication_ argument.”

Shushing him, Foggy all but dragged him out into the hallway. “But you got the evidence excluded just fine, so don’t worry about it.”

Matt knew Foggy wasn’t naïve enough to be that optimistic. “It won’t stop with this evidence. Tower hates vigilantes and he hates us.”

“Tower doesn’t have enough passion to hate anything,” Foggy retorted. “He’s just trying to do his job.”

Matt gave an angry shake of his head.

“Look, you won. It’s fine.” Foggy nudged him with his shoulder. “And seriously, that was really fun to watch, but try to calm down, all right?”

“He wanted to use those articles to attack Peter’s character, Fogs. I can’t just let that happen.”

“And you didn’t,” Foggy pointed out. “You stopped him. Good job, and let’s move on.”

He didn’t want to. The anger felt almost refreshing. “Look, I’m gonna stick around.”

“You’re not allowed to beat up Tower.”

Sadly. “I just wanna see if I can hear anything.”

“That is _highly_ unethical.”

“Go work on the Lambert case.” After all, their other clients didn’t disappear just because they’d been hired by Spiderman.

Foggy sighed. “All right, fine. But I’m serious about Tower. Leave him alone.”

“Bye, Fogs.” Matt tapped his cane in the opposite direction, straining his ears for any hushed conversation that might give him a better hint as to what Tower was planning. He could also admit, if only to himself, that he wanted to linger at the courthouse simply because it felt better than going home to be alone with his thoughts, where even Frank was less soothing than usual. Which was only fair. It was his fault that Peter was stuck in this process in the first place.

Regardless, he heard nothing useful. He was useless.

Then he cocked his head at a familiar sound. The courthouse halls were full of footsteps, but the sound of these particular heels clacking over the floor was unmistakable. Even the echoes sounded impatient. Matt braced himself as the intertwined scents drew closer—Marci, predominately, but there was plenty of Foggy mixed in there as well.

It was vaguely disconcerting.

“Murdock,” she said once she was close enough. “I hoped I’d find you here.”

Leaning on his cane, he plastered a pleasant smile across his face. “Is there something you needed to tell me?”

“Discuss with you, actually.” She stuck her arm through his without his permission and led him towards the nearest exit.

“I’m not finished here,” he said without any hope that it would make a difference.

“You can come back when I’m done with you.” She steered him outside. There were still too many people around, too many potential eyes watching, for him to extricate himself. She seemed highly aware of this, since she stopped walking when they were out of earshot but also without anything blocking them from view of the courthouse. “I read the files on Spiderman’s case. You and Foggy are sweet to take this on, but you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“First, that’s a breach of ethics since you’re not part of Spiderman’s counsel. Second—”

“Foggy and I are covered under spousal privilege, so have fun suing us.”

They weren’t married, but courts were tending to recognize cohabitation as giving rise to a confidential relationship and besides, Matt liked his head where it was, so he chose not to debate the point.

“The arresting officer, Detective Mahoney? He’s one of Foggy’s friends and I know you’ve worked with him as, you know—”

“Stop talking.”

“So, frankly, I doubt either of you are being objective where he’s concerned.” She lowered her voice. “His report is gonna be full of holes. You can use it to say he violated procedure when he arrested Spiderman or you can use it to point out that maybe Spiderman didn’t do what they’re accusing him of doing anyway. Detective Mahoney won’t be able to defend himself.”

“We did discuss it, actually,” Matt informed her. “Foggy nixed that exact plan.”

“ _Really_.” She sounded impressed. “But since when does Foggy get to make all the decisions?”

Since Foggy’s decisions were usually vastly superior to Matt’s. “He doesn’t want to hurt the case against Vanessa.”

“Like Tower has the balls to build a case against Vanessa even if we gave him video footage of her holding a knife to the mayor’s throat.”

We? “Well, short of that, the vial of devil’s hell I secured for him is still our best shot.”

“Listen, Matt,” she said, voice syrupy and patronizing. “We need to take our own shot. We don’t even need it to _land_ , but we do need to take it. Depose Brett. Let Tower see the transcript. Let them realize what’s at stake if it goes in front of a judge or a jury.”

By her thinking, the damage that transcript could do to Vanessa’s case would actually give the bluff more teeth. Interesting strategy. “Foggy’s also concerned that we might push Brett into revealing what he knows about…well. Since dealing with me was the reason his lockdown of the scene was so delayed.”

Marci shifted her weight onto one leg so she could rest her hand on her cocked hip. “So?”

“So…it’s a risk.”

She scoffed. “You’re Daredevil.”

“Keep your voice down,” he hissed.

“Risks are kind of your thing,” she insisted. “And this one’s for Spiderman’s sake. Something tells me you think he’s worth it.”

The issue was never whether Peter was worth it; the issue was that Matt knew Foggy would interpret any attempt at deposing Brett as something dramatic and self-destructive. Matt sighed. “I need Foggy to trust my judgment. He won’t if I start tearing apart Brett’s investigation.”

“You two need to stop coddling each other,” Marci announced decisively.

Matt frowned. “We don’t—”

“But since _that’s_ not happening anytime soon, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Wait, what—”

She flicked something at his face; one of her business cards. “Get Spiderman to hire me and I’ll take care of Brett. He won’t know what hit him. We’ll tell Foggy after it’s done and I’ll give him an apology he won’t forget. As for you, you can, I don’t know, buy him flowers or something.”

“But—”

“I’ll call you tonight while he’s in the shower and we’ll plan the next move. Talk to you then.” With that, she strode away at a shocking speed given the length of her heels.

Technically, Matt _could_ have chased after her, even with his cane. But he was a bit too stunned and, besides, he didn’t actually disagree with her plan.

 

Maggie

A tall figure was lurking in the basement again. Maggie bit back a smile. Although Matthew had been keeping her updated on things, all the chaos surrounding devil’s hell and Spiderman’s arrest prevented them from spending as much time together as usual.

“I thought we’d moved past the lurking,” she said lightly, descending from the last step.

“Interesting, given that we’ve barely met.”

She jumped. The voice was not Matthew’s.

A man with long hair, dressed in a jacket that looked both expensive and slept-in, flicked on the weak basement light. “The man they call Daredevil comes here frequently.”

A chill snaked down her spine. Stone, from the clinic. He knew she knew Matthew, but as far as she was aware he didn't know the context of their relationship. He knew of Daredevil, of course - enough to have trained him with knives - but she wasn't sure whether he also knew Matthew was Daredevil. Better to play ignorant for now. “There was an attack here months ago, if that’s what you’re referring to, but that Daredevil was an imposter.”

He raised an eyebrow, squinting and causing crows feet to crack along his skin. “Oh, he visits much more frequently than that.”

“Well, thank you for the warning,” she said. “The last thing we need is a devil in the church. I haven’t seen him.”

Amusement glinted in his eyes. “And has he seen you?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “This basement is off limits.”

“Matthew Murdock,” he said suddenly.

“Excuse me?”

“You remind me of him.”

She lowered her hands, slipping them into her pockets. Her phone was in her left pocket and she moved her finger over the emergency contact button. “I protect the privacy of our parishioners. But if you need your own spiritual guidance, I’d be more than happy to—”

Stone's head tilted. “You’re calling him.”

She edged her foot back onto the step. “No, but I will call the police if you don’t leave.”

To her shock, Stone drew a knife from his belt—so fast that she blinked one moment, and the next it was in his hand—and dropped it on the ground with a loud clatter. “Calm down,” he said, drawing another knife (and another) and dropping the two on the ground to join the first. “Now I’m unarmed. You don’t need to panic.”

If he thought throwing multiple knives on the floor was supposed to calm her down, he was clearly not the kind of person she should spend time with alone in a basement. She forced a smile. “I’m not panicking, but I am late for a meeting.” But leaving him here felt like turning her back on a poisonous spider—she couldn’t leave him alone in the basement without telling every single person in the church to avoid going anywhere near there, and even then he might catch someone. Wetting her lips, Maggie stood her ground, hoping her pocket would muffle Matthew’s voice as the call went through.

_“Mom?”_

Stone's eyes widened.

No such luck, then.

“Did he just say _mom?_ ” Stone echoed confusedly.

“You need to leave,” Maggie repeated, keeping her voice even.

 _“Is that Stone?”_ Matthew asked distantly.

Stone’s lips parted in a bitter smile. “He has a mother. Of course he does. What doesn’t he have?”

_“Mom, I’m on my way. Stay on the phone. Don’t talk to him.”_

Maggie bit her lip. “I have a meeting. I’ll escort you out.”

Matthew swore.

Stone raised his voice. “I know you can hear me, Matty. Relax. I already gave up my knives and your mother isn’t scared of me.” He held out a hand. “Pleasure to see you again, Sister.”

 _“How many knives?”_ Matthew demanded. _“If it’s anything less than five, get out of there.”_

“No need for that,” Stone commented, “since he’s less than a minute away.”

It was true that Matthew’s office was close to the church, but it was also true that Stone had only surrendered three knives. She moved backwards, managing two steps up the stairs when she heard the door to the church slam above her, followed by a startled squeal. A second later, Matthew came barreling down the stairs. She flattened herself to the wall as he burst past her, skidding to a halt in front of Stone, glasses crooked and without his cane.

“What the _hell_ are you doing here?” he snarled.

Stone held up his hands as if in a show of innocence. “I didn’t mean to disrupt anything; I merely wondered what draws you here so often that your scent is all but wrapped around every bannister.”

Maggie glanced at the room. If Stone recognized Matthew’s _scent_ , what else had he figured out while he was in this basement?

“It’s a church,” Matthew spat. “I’m religious. Leave.”

“I thought you were alone,” Stone said quietly. “Stick always said you were alone. Where was she?”

Oh, so Stone knew Stick. Maggie was suddenly faced with the realization that this—whatever _this_ was—was something far beyond her experience. She tried to shrink unobtrusively into the stairway.

Stepping forward, Matthew kicked the knives away. “And the others?”

Stone shrugged and pulled a fourth blade from where it was tucked against his back. He dropped it into the other three with a clatter.

“And the last one?” Matthew growled.

“I gave it away.”

“In someone’s throat?” Matthew asked sardonically.

“In the hands of a little girl who might get killed without it, thanks to you.”

Matthew looked suddenly…well, menacing and when he spoke, his voice had dropped an octave. “You gave _Ella_ a knife.”

“Apparently her previous weapon was confiscated. I told her to take better care of this one.”

Maggie suddenly thought Matthew would throw a punch, so she darted forward, dodging her son as he tried to sweep her back behind him. “Well, Stone, if you were waiting for Matthew—”

“Not waiting for,” he interrupted curtly. “Investigating.” He tilted his head as if surveying the basement. “Everything makes much more sense now. Thank you. But one question remains unanswered. If you’re his _mother_ , why did you let him near _Stick?_ ”

“You don’t have to answer that,” Matthew snapped.

Yes, she did. At some point, she certainly did. Maggie narrowed her eyes at Stone. It didn’t take much to infer that he was everything Matthew could so easily have become as a result of her sin. “Stone,” she said softly. “Are you in town long?”

“As long as it takes,” was his inexact answer.

“Do you have somewhere you can stay?”

Matthew grabbed her arm. “Mom,” he whispered fiercely. “He’s not safe.”

No, but the people in most desperate need of help were often also those most capable of inflicting wounds. That was why they needed help—someone else first taught them how to be unsafe. “I’ve been offering shelter to dangerous individuals long before you learned how to fight them,” she told him, slipping past Stone to inspect the bed. It would need to be refreshed. She raised her voice. “You can stay here, Stone, if you like.”

“He has an apartment,” Matthew argued.

Did he? Even so, she couldn’t imagine that being alone was a healthy situation for Stone. “You can stay here,” she repeated.

Stone drifted closer, running a hand over the bed. “You’re very kind.”

“And patient,” she agreed. “Speaking of which.” She turned to face her son, who bore the expression of someone watching a fiery train wreck. But she knew how to distract him. “Karen came to see me the other day.”

Matthew blinked; Stone wisely kept his mouth shut.

“Help me with the linens,” she instructed, moving to the closet.

Matthew followed, though she suspected that had more to do with his determination to keep himself positioned between her and Stone as much as possible. “You don’t have to replace the sheets for him.”

“But I want to.” She stacked pillows in his arms, glancing over his shoulder to see Stone looking on with a delighted expression.

Narrowing his eyes, Matthew craned his neck around the pillows. “Was Karen okay?” he asked, a little urgently, like he couldn’t quite help himself.

Karen was as okay as a woman trying to understand Matthew Murdock could possibly be. But it still seemed to Maggie that both Karen and Matthew were too focused on a secondary problem. Karen was hurt (and trying not to show it) that he wouldn’t trust her with a child, and he was terrified (and trying not to show it) of trusting her love for him if they had a child. The real problem, then, centered not on the child but the strength of their relationship.

And though Karen would not admit it as plainly as Matthew, Maggie wondered if she might be equally as afraid of what he might see in her as he was of what she might see in him.

“She’s fine, of course,” Maggie said. She placed a folded blanket on the stack of pillows. “Sniff this and tell me if it’s clean.”

He rolled his eyes behind his crooked glasses. “Stone’s lucky to be getting any blankets at all. What did Karen want, then?”

“To talk about you, since I’m something of an expert. Go put those on the bed.”

Matthew went through the motions of compliance, basically tossing them at Stone before returning to her side with his eyebrows raised. “What about me?”

Which told Maggie two things: that he and Karen had not become experts in communication since she’d last seen either of them, which was no surprise, and that he was far more comfortable in front of Stone than he was letting on, which was quite a surprise. Still, mindful of their audience, Maggie thought it better not to bring up the issue of kids. “Honey, I think the two of you have worries that are more similar than you think.”

He looked dismayed. “What, she thinks I’ll leave if things get hard? Is _that_ why she wants…?”

“No,” Maggie said quickly. “But she changed the subject so quickly I can’t help but think there’s something more there. You might try reassuring her.”

From his spot on the bed, Stone snorted derisively, picking up one of his knives and playing idly with it.

Matthew glared and opened his mouth, so Maggie hurried to clarify. “When you’re with Karen, what do you know about her?”

He cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what I said. What do you know about her?”

He looked bewildered. “What do you want me to say? Her name? Her date of birth?”

Maggie sighed. “Stone, come here.”

He lifted his head languidly. “I hardly see how I’m involved.”

“Stone,” Maggie repeated. “Come here.”

Stone stabbed the knife into the pillow, permanently ruining it, and slouched over to join them. “What?”

“Matthew,” Maggie said precisely. “What can you tell about Stone right now? What do you know?”

“He’s annoyed,” he answered promptly, clearly confused as to the purpose of her question but utterly confident in his read of Stone.

“And why is he annoyed?”

Now he smirked. “Because we’re having relational conversation and he doesn’t understand it.”

Stone pursed his lips. “If I’m annoyed, it’s because I’m bored down here with just the two of you.”

Neither Matthew nor Maggie bothered to point out that the stairs to leave were straight ahead. “I’m sure Stone is very impressed with your analysis,” she said, “and you might even be right.  But that’s only part of the equation. I have an idea, and I suggest you follow my advice and thank me later. The next time you’re with Karen, and you’re able to read her…her happiness, or anger, or whatever it is, I want you to ask her about it. And then I want you to ask another question, and when you’re sure you understand her, I want you to ask another question.”

He frowned.

She held up a finger to keep him silent, keep him listening. “Your senses are a gift. Whenever you interact with another person, you can read them no matter how expertly they try to hide themselves.”

“I know it makes people uncomfortable. I can’t help it.”

She resisted the temptation to ruffle his hair. “That’s not what I’m saying at all.” Sighing, she closed the closet door and faced him directly, giving up any pretense of thinking about laundry. “In the Bible, of course, it talks about how God knows us.”

It was Stone’s turn to smirk when Matthew rested his hands on his hips, the tips of his ears reddening ever so slightly at this turn in the conversation. “He’s supposed to know everything,” he said uncertainly.

“Exactly,” Maggie said, setting aside for now the question of why religion, of all things, made Matthew feel awkward around Stone. “He knows everything there is to know about us before we’re even born.” She allowed a smile. “Why, then, does the Bible also talk about God searching us?”

“It…does?”

She clasped her hands behind her back. “I think that it must be true that all people desire to be known, truly known. And I think, with your gifts, that you have an extra advantage in making someone feel known.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Doesn’t feel like an advantage. The few people who know I can read their signals don’t usually enjoy it when I do.”

“Because you’re forgetting that, if the Bible is to believed, there’s also something deeply human about the desire to not only be known but to be _discovered_.”

He tilted his head.

She gestured pointedly at Stone; Matthew had told her, succinctly, about Karen’s meetings with Stone, and it was easy to see that Karen’s goal hadn’t changed, even if her methods had. “Karen asks you questions, watches you, tries to understand you?”

Matthew shifted his weight. “She does.”

“I know it makes you uncomfortable,” Maggie said simply, “but instead of focusing on that, maybe you could appreciate that her attempts at investigating you are her way of showing you how she feels. You don’t have to like it, but you could consider whether _she_ might feel more loved if you decided to investigate her in turn. Discover her.”

He didn’t answer.

“Or,” Maggie said lightly, “you could give her one of your own knives, since that seems to be another way of expressing affection.”

Cue Stone’s look of utter indignation. “It’s a weapon, Sister.”

No one in the room believed him.


	14. You Won't Let Go

Marci

Foggy actually liked Brett. As, you know, a person. But Foggy had a habit of liking people for no apparent reason. Brett was just one example; Matt Murdock was another. It was one of the (many) things she loved about him, partly because she couldn’t relate.

Well, if she sat down with a spreadsheet, she could map out Brett’s redeeming qualities and maybe convince herself that, on paper, he was a decent person. But he still seemed so completely _vanilla_. However, since Foggy _did_ actually like Brett, she promised herself to limit her upcoming enjoyment to her own brilliance and not derive any added pleasure from his suffering.

Speaking of suffering, Matt was due in just a few minutes. She’d already made sure to empty her office trash can, and at the last second she cracked the window just to air the place out, thinking her perfume might be too strong for his, well, sensitivities. If she ever went against him in court, she’d milk that for all it was worth. But they were on the same side for now and she didn’t want any distractions from strategizing.

Moments after she’d sat back down behind her desk, there was a knock. Matt stuck his head in. “You ready for me?”

“You’re exactly on time.” She arched a judgmental eyebrow, though the effect was lost on him. “Did you stake out the place last night so you’d be able to find it? I expected the scent of corporate greed to throw you off.”

“Maybe it would’ve,” he fired back, “but I know how to track the strange disparity that comes from a warm body without a heart.” Stepping into the room, he set his cane in the corner like he was marking his territory and dropped his bag by the chair in front of her desk.

“I have a heart. It’s the soul I’m still missing.”

“As a Catholic, I have myriad opinions about that.”

“And I care about absolutely none of them. Sit down.”

He complied, smoothing his tie out of the way of her desk and clearing his throat. “Here’s the complication. Attacking Brett’s work at the crime scene will help get Spiderman off, but it’ll also hurt our case against Vanessa, and although I can defend Spiderman without a problem, I _can’t_ move directly against Vanessa without giving Fisk permission to attack the people in my life.” He fidgeted with the strap of his bag. “Like Foggy.”

Marci was unimpressed. “So you have competing interests. Welcome to the practice of law.”

“I don’t think you understand,” he said slowly. “One wrong move in either direction could result in Spiderman’s life ruined or Foggy’s _murder_.”

“And one wrong move on the highway could result in my mangled body twisted around a light pole, and yet I haven’t thrown away my driver’s license.” If she didn’t know for a fact that he was actually capable of killing her if she set him off, she’d give him a condescending pat on the arm. “Let’s prioritize. Obviously, any route that could get Foggy killed is off the table.”

“Yes,” he said quickly.

“So if it comes down to a choice between protecting Spiderman’s case or protecting the case against Vanessa, which do you prefer?”

Again, he didn’t even have to think about it. “Spiderman.”

Odd, since Vanessa was capable of inflicting way more harm on Hell’s Kitchen than Spiderman alone could hope to stop and Matt Murdock was creepily obsessed with shielding Hell’s Kitchen from any harm at all. “Why?”

“I’m responsible for him,” Matt answered tersely.

“What, like his babysitter?”

“No.”

She wished Foggy were here; Foggy could usually tell when Matt was lying, or so she’d always thought. Now she knew there was at least one glaring exception. “You realize, of course, that you’re basically choosing one person’s wellbeing over the countless victims of devil’s hell who will suffer every day that we don’t put Vanessa away.”

Disbelief flashed across his face. “Are you really arguing utilitarian morals with me right now?”

“No, I’m setting myself up to call you a hypocrite later, since Foggy tells me you consider it selfish for him to care more about the wellbeing of his best friend than for random strangers around Hell’s Kitchen.” She curled her lip. “And now you’re doing the same thing for Spiderman.”

His smile was icily polite, giving nothing away. “Well, I don’t really expect you to understand the complexities in balancing concern for more than one person at a time.”

“Competing interests,” she repeated dismissively. “You’re not special. Don’t worry, I’ll laugh about it later. For now, let’s get to work.”

“Good.” He withdrew a file from his bag and dropped it on the desk. “The arrest report, police reports, and medical reports from the criminals who were injured—which is pretty much all of them. I also talked to Tower, and he said he’s confident enough in Brett that he’s willing to expedite this. We can depose Brett tomorrow if you think we’ll be ready by then.”

“I could depose him right now,” she said loftily, ignoring the file. “We already know he let you go, which violates procedure. We just have to prove it.”

“Uh, yeah,” he said incredulously, “which we can’t do without knowing exactly what he did and didn’t do at the scene.” He slid the file closer to her. “Please tell me you’re planning on doing _some_ research ahead of time.”

She glanced at the file, then back at him. “You were there. Tell me what you think the best move is.”

His face was expressionless as he stared at her, or whatever, but then his head tilted downwards, causing his melodramatic sunglasses to glint reluctantly. “We need to attack the timing. As far as I know, he followed procedure…he just did it out of order, giving me time to escape. And I can only assume he didn’t register the time spent talking with me in his log.”

“So we point out the gap between when he arrived on the scene and when he actually started controlling it. Is there any evidence that you were there?”

“We can’t mention me,” Matt answered swiftly. “If it gets out that Daredevil was there, Fisk can retaliate against Foggy. You agreed—”

“Could you stop panicking for five seconds, maybe? Take a deep breath.” She drummed her nails on the file. “I’m not saying I’ll interrogate Brett on all his interactions with Daredevil, but I need to have the facts.”

Matt did this for a living; he should know this. He still looked unhappy. “I took out two men on my own. One with a chokehold and one with his own weapon. Blunt force trauma to the head.”

“You didn’t use a gun? As, you know, a gun. Not like a stick or whatever.”

“Blunt force trauma. Like I said.”

“And I assume you don’t have, you know…” She waved her hand at him. “Webs.”

“Not last I checked,” he said dryly.

“So we’ll take a look at the ME’s report—”

“You mean the report I brought you, in this file?” he asked pointedly.

“—and see if any of those injuries showed up. If they did, we can point out that they don’t fit with either Spiderman or the firefight. We can suggest that someone else was there. Brett’ll know who we’re talking about.”

“And he can literally point me out right then and there, if he wants.”

Yes, he could, but he wouldn’t want to. He’d want to downplay any Daredevil involvement at all to protect his own reputation as well as the case against Vanessa. She sat back in her chair, watching Matt carefully. Taking risks was apparently in his DNA. And if he was still anything like what she remembered from law school, he loved the thrill of coming up with an angle the other side wouldn’t expect. Brett would be prepared for most of their other questions, but this one? She’d laid out her strategy; if she just kept silent, she was betting he’d convince himself.

He ran a hand through his hair. “I mean, it could throw him off, at least. Unbalance him, since he won’t be ready for it.” Then he shrugged, and a small grin flashed across his face. “Whatever, let’s give it a shot.”

Perfect. “I’ll take point on the deposition,” she decided. “That way, I can handle things if he indicates that he might drag you down with him, and it’ll go a bit farther towards preserving the testimony if you actually are thrown under the bus.”

His hesitated. “Thank you, Marci.”

She had never, ever heard him use that voice with her. It made her want to jump out a window just to get away from the sincerity of it.

Before she could, however, his phone started chirping out a name: “Micah, Micah, Micah.”

“Isn’t that the dad of the girl?” Marci asked.

Matt ignored her, standing up and turning away to answer. Since Marci did not have superhearing and since Matt had selfishly neglected to put his phone on speaker, there was no way to know what Micah was saying. But Matt made an expression that Marci recognized from a regrettable semester of tax law. “Come again?” Whatever Micah said in response did not banish the expression. If anything, Matt looked more confused. “Tomorrow? Sure. I’ll see you then.” He lowered the phone and cocked his head wordlessly at Marci.

“I can’t help you unless you tell me what just happened,” she reminded him, not expecting him to actually share any information whatsoever.

But today was apparently a day for the surprises. “Micah Vallier just asked if he and I could get dinner tomorrow.”

“Isn’t he already married?” she remarked.

“He says he wants advice. Not legal.” His mouth twisted skeptically. “Personal.”

“What, and he thinks you’re qualified?”

Matt barked out a startled laugh. “Right?”

“It’s a trap,” Marci announced. “Don’t go.”

“He suggested Korean food.”

“Trap,” she insisted.

“I’m going.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah, I know.” His grin lasted longer this time as he plunked back into the chair. “Let’s get some actual questions put down on paper, but before we do that, I need you to read Brett’s file.”

She tossed her head. “Fine.”

 

Matt

He arrived at Hogarth, Chao, and Benowitz ahead of time the next day but wished he hadn’t. Marci was definitely more nervous than she was willing to admit, and she was taking it out on him with waspish comments. She paced through the conference room situated about a thousand floors below her own overpriced office, the room she’d reserved just for this deposition. Being on her own turf didn’t seem to be helping.

He felt a flash of sympathy. “Focus on your breathing.”

“I’m not meditating with you,” she snapped. “Getting yourself stuck inside your head all the time probably explains half your problems anyway.”

Okay, then. Matt retreated into the corner of the room, thinking it best to let her pace herself to death and wondering if he could suggest that Foggy get her flowers without giving away their activities. To his knowledge, Foggy was still ignorant; Nelson, Murdock, and Page was busy enough for Matt to easily explain away his absence from the office without admitting to secret cooperation with Foggy’s fiancée. Actually, Matt should probably not be as excited about this as much as he was. But secrets were as invigorating as they were dangerous, and it was nice to have a coconspirator for once.

“Incoming,” he murmured in warning. Marci stopped pacing in time for the reporter to arrive with stenograph machine in tow, closely followed by Brett and Tower. Brett settled into his seat with his usual air: professional first and foremost, but also like he was already resignedly impatient with whatever the legal world was currently demanding of him. He with hands folded on the table while the lawyers went over the usual rules and stipulations. Marci wasn’t usually involved with criminal law—at least, not intentionally—so Matt took the lead on the preliminary issues. Then they both let Tower have his turn with the witness.

The DA’s approach was methodical. His questions established Brett’s background and training, then went through the night in question moment by moment. Brett reported how he’s seen the Sons of Satan and several other assailants not affiliated with any known gang. When he’d arrived at the scene, all the individuals were injured and some had been strung up with artificial webbing recognizable as belonging to Spiderman. There was also a truck riddled with bullets and bearing vials of devil’s hell, broken except for once, which Brett said that he had secured on arrival for evidence. Tower did not push as to how, exactly, Brett secured that one lucky vial. Finally, Brett explained that he’d interacted personally with Spiderman, who had in no way resisted arrest.

Nice of him to throw that in, meaning Marci could limit her deposition to attacking Brett’s control of the crime scene without bothering with Spiderman.

All in all, Tower kept the deposition brief and to the point. Then he leaned back with a self-satisfied attitude, probably because he thought that by getting ahead of Spiderman’s cooperation he’d effectively undercut Marci’s questions. “I've nothing further.”

“Thanks,” she said sweetly. There was a single piece of notepaper in front of her, but she just twirled her pen idly as she tilted her head at Brett. “Hello, Detective. This isn’t your first time arriving at a crime scene to find that a vigilante has already done your job for you, is it?”

“They don’t do my job,” Brett said in the voice of someone who’d had to communicate this idea too many times to too many people.

“But on the night in question, Spiderman was there, wasn’t he? That’s why we’re here today, isn’t it?” Her voice lilted upwards at the end, misleadingly sweet.

“You know the charges as well as I do,” Brett muttered. “Or if you don’t, I’m sure your co-counsel does.”

Co-counsel? Matt felt mildly offended on Foggy’s behalf, and also slightly vindicated in realizing that Brett was not a fan of Marci.

She leaned forward on the edge of her chair, heart beating faster though her voice stayed perfectly even. “So let’s talk about what happened that night.” She pointed her pen at Brett. “You arrived at the scene.”

“Yes,” he answered simply.

“Now…” Marci’s voice took on a false thoughtfulness. “Pursuant to your standard operating procedures, the first step when responding to an active crime scene is to deal with injuries. Do I have that right?”

“Yes.”

“But you also need to make sure no witnesses leave the area.”

“That’s right.”

“And you need to make sure all unauthorized personnel stay _outside_ of the area.”

“Right.”

“You need to photograph the scene.”

“As soon as possible, yes.”

“You need to collect all the evidence.”

“As much as we can, yes.”

“And it needs to be marked and transported precisely to maintain the chain of custody.”

“Yes.”

“Now, it’s standard operating procedure at the NYPD for one officer to be responsible for the marking and collection of trace evidence while the others secure the scene, correct?”

Brett hesitated. “Yes.”

“And so, of course, you called for assistance.”

“I did.”

There was a slick sound as her lipstick-coated lips parted in a smile. “You did?”

“Yes, I said did,” Brett said tersely.

“Detective, did you call for assistance when you received the alert from dispatch?”

“No.”

“Did you call for assistance as soon as you arrived on the scene?”

“I called for assistance once I’d stabilized the bodies.”

“Directing you back to my question, you did _not_ call for assistance as soon as you arrived?”

“The call went out on dispatch. Backup was coming.”

“But _you_ didn’t call for backup, or call to advise backup that the situation involved devil’s hell, guns, and Spiderman.”

He shifted his weight minutely. “I did not.”

“And you didn’t call for assistance while you checked on the injured individuals.”

“The situation was too urgent,” he defended himself.

“Did you call for assistance before or after you started photographing?”

“Before. I needed to keep an eye on the victims.”

“Thank you,” she said. “So you called for assistance before you started photographing the scene. Did that assistance actually _arrive_ before you started collecting evidence?”

“No, but if you check my log, you’ll find a consistent chain of custody of all the evidence. It never left my possession or control.”

Marci’s voice hardened. “Oh, I’m not worried about the chain of custody, Detective. Let’s back up a bit. You just stated that part of securing a crime scene involves making sure no unauthorized personnel enter the crime scene.”

“Yes.”

“And your responsibility in securing a crime scene _also_ requires that you make sure no witnesses to the crime leave the area.”

“Yes, I just said that.”

“Detective, indoor crime scenes offer some natural barriers, don’t they?”

“Depending on the location, I suppose.”

“Walls,” she suggested.

“Sure.”

“Doors as specific entry points.”

“Usually.”

“But outdoor crime scenes,” she said quickly, “are a whole different story.”

Brett sighed so quietly Matt could barely hear it. “They’re more difficult to control, yes.”

“Especially if you’re by yourself, right, Detective? Which you were, because you didn’t call for backup soon enough, _did you_ , Detective? You didn’t call for backup while en route and you didn’t call for backup immediately when you arrived.” She shook her head. “And you expect us to believe today that you controlled that crime scene all by yourself, keeping all relevant personnel in and all unauthorized personnel out?”

Brett took a slow breath in. “Counselor, are you referring to any specific personnel?”

There was a pause. “Not at all. Purely hypothetical.” She sat back in her seat. “I’ve nothing further to ask. Thanks for your time, Detective.”

Matt felt the tension slowly release in his shoulders. They were done.

 

He was late for meeting Micah.

The deposition hadn’t even taken that long, but he’d stayed late to brainstorm with Marci, and then realized that he needed to get something accomplished on his other cases to justify being away from the office so long, and _then_ he’d had to visit the church to make sure that Stone wasn’t still lurking there (he wasn’t, but he’d come back less than an hour earlier, so Matt definitely needed to have a conversation with Stone and also with Maggie to make sure everyone understood appropriate boundaries here), and by the time he stepped inside the Korean restaurant, he felt…frayed.

But the air around him was warm and heavy with spices. He couldn’t quite remember the last time he’d eaten and definitely couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone to a restaurant; there’d just been too much going on ever since his own trial. Was it normal to feel out of practice going out to dinner? Or maybe the truth was that he felt out of practice being around normal people, talking about things that weren’t related to felonies and identities and vigilantism.

What was he _doing_ here?

He wasn’t even hungry, although that was probably for the best since he suspected Micah might offer to pay for the meal. It was a kind gesture, but it also meant Matt would owe him, which would make it harder to avoid whatever Micah wanted to talk about.

He felt paranoid for even thinking that way, for assuming he’d _want_ to avoid whatever Micah wanted to talk about. But Marci thought this sounded like a trap and he couldn’t help but agree. Maybe Micah had found out about Ella’s rooftop escapades. Maybe Micah was rethinking letting Matt train Ella. Maybe Micah had looked into Matt’s history at St. Agnes’ and realized there was more to that particular story than what Matt had shared.

Well, Matt wasn’t a coward. He could handle questions about Ella and rooftops, and he could live with it if Micah thought it better that Ella learn self-defense from someone (anyone) else.

But there was no reason for Micah to know anything about what Stick did. It wouldn’t do any good. In fact, there was every reason for Micah to be kept in the dark, the most obvious being that it would worry him unnecessarily. But there was also…well. If Micah knew, he might treat Matt differently. See him differently.

Because, no matter how wrong Stick’s behavior had been, Matt shouldn’t have let it happen in the first place. It wasn’t like he hadn’t known, even back then, how he should be treated. It wasn’t like he’d been incapable of comparing how his dad acted with him and how Stick acted with him. And Matt had been surrounded by all those nuns—he should’ve told someone what was happening. Should’ve stopped it.

And he hadn’t.

Complaining about it now was, frankly, embarrassing. Not to mention a waste of time.

Micah was waiting for him at a relatively private table laden with water and menus. Matt could easily hear all the conversations around them, but he assumed that none of the other patrons would be able to listen in.

“Try the soy sauce crab,” Micah said as Matt sat down. “The gejang soaks into the rice and meat, which I imagine would be even more delicious with your senses.”

“Thank you.” They both ordered the same thing and Micah seemed so effortless with all of this that Matt had to wonder how often he took his family out. How often he took Maeva out.

Karen deserved more dates.

Matt was a lousy boyfriend.

He tried very hard to keep all of those thoughts off his face. There was probably a cognitive distortion in there somewhere, and his therapist would be disappointed in him for not nailing it down, but he couldn’t even begin to think which one he might have slipped into.

Besides, the facts were undeniable. Matt was, indeed, a horrible boyfriend.

He was a pretty terrible friend, too, just sitting in silence like this. He cleared his throat. “So, how was your day?”

If Micah agreed that the question was worthless, he had the decency not to comment on it. “My day was pretty good. One of our coworkers has a habit of giving unsolicited advice and there were some passive aggressive comments in an email chain, but I try to stay out of the drama.”

“Where do you work?”

Matt should’ve known this ages ago. It probably came up in Micah’s testimony, too, and Matt just hadn’t been paying enough attention to the trial, which made it official: he was a terrible lawyer as well as a terrible friend.

“I work for the Stevens Institute of Technology. I’m an advisor who specializes in guiding students through the engineering degrees.”

“I had no idea.”

The server placed their food on the table and Micah immediately mixed his rice into the sauce. “The students are bright kids,” he was saying, “but for most of them, it’s their first time away from home. I try to help them if they feel lost at sea, so to speak, but at the same time, I want them to have the confidence to make their own decisions, especially because there really aren’t very many _wrong_ choices. Let them practice some independence in a safe environment.” He paused, chuckling to himself. “Although any student who takes a certain differential equations professor is bound to say he or she made the wrong choice.”

“Differential equations?”

“It’s a way of modeling change by basically relating an actual quantity to rates of change at different times. It’s used in a lot of technical fields.”

“So…math?” Matt guessed. “Sorry, I never took anything more challenging than pre-calculus.”

“But calculus is where things start to get fun,” Micah said, almost wistfully. “There’s a whole world of ways to use equations to explain and understand.”

“I think I’ll stick with words over equations, personally.”

“Did you ever consider anything but law?”

Matt took a long drink before responding. “Uh, not really. As soon as I learned what a lawyer was, I knew I wanted to do that. Help people.”

“There are a lot of other ways to help people,” Micah pointed out.

“But the law allows me to have direct and long-lasting relationships with my clients. That’s a lot harder to get if you’re, say, a first responder. Before you mention it, I did consider psychology, but…” He smiled slightly. “I prefer working in an adversarial system.”

“You don’t just want to help people; you also want to win.”

Well, Matt’s way of putting it was much more diplomatic, but… “Yes,” he admitted.

Micah snorted. “Nothing to be ashamed of there. Besides, seeing the way some people take advantage of others…knowing there are still people like Ella’s father out in the world…I get it. Maybe not enough to take up martial arts, but I get it.”

Matt took a risk. “If you heard as much as I do every night, maybe you’d learn how to fight too.”

Micah tilted his head to the side. “Maybe I would.”

Feeling like he’d probably revealed too much, Matt concentrated on his next mouthful.

“We’ve been trying the hug thing,” Micah said, apropos of nothing.

“Come again?”

“What you suggested. Lots of casual hugs to reassure her.” Micah set his chopsticks down. “It seems to be helping.”

“Good.” But Matt got the sense that this, actually, was what Micah had been referring to when he’d mentioned advice.

“The problem is, she’s still getting into fights,” Micah said. “Not all the time, not as much as before she showed you that hit list of hers, but…still.” Now he sighed, slumping a little in his seat. “And the research suggests that kids do things like this when they’re testing the stability of a home. I don’t see why she thinks she need to test it. Haven’t we shown her that we’re not going anywhere, no matter what?”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “And how have you done that?”

“By…everything we’ve been doing. Going to all of her school things, working together on projects, going to therapy, taking her on random dates—”

“Dates?”

Micah laughed awkwardly. “I take her to nice restaurants to show her how she deserves to be treated. She’s too young to be thinking about that kind of thing, but I want to set her expectations sky-high as soon as possible.”

Matt had never in his life thought of doing something like that. “Right. Well, all of that sounds really good. But what you’re trying to prove isn’t really something that can be proven in a logical sense. It’s not that simple.”

“I know,” Micah said quickly. “We just…don’t know what else to do.”

Matt focused on fiddling his chopsticks. “Aside from trouble at school, and running away twice, has she done other things that you and Maeva don’t like?”

“She’s perfect.”

“Well, once that changes, you’ll have a better opportunity for proof.”

“What, because she thinks we’d turn her away as soon as she makes a mistake?”

Matt pressed his lips together. “Maybe not in so many words.”

Micah’s shoulders sagged. “I want her to trust us _before_ something bad happens, not _because_ something bad happened.”

“You can’t logic someone into trust. Trust is built on logic, sure, but at some point, it becomes a leap of faith. You and Maeva have been doing everything right so far,” he added, trying to be somehow encouraging, “but she hasn’t had to leap.”

Micah stabbed his chopsticks into his meal. “I don’t want her to have to leap.”

“Look, I’m just saying…when something goes wrong, you’ll have the chance to show that she matters more to you than whatever it was that went wrong.” He hesitated, not particularly wanting to put this next part into words but also wanting to be absolutely clear. “Especially if whatever went wrong is something she somehow feels responsible for. It’s one thing for her family to comfort her in the face of an external crisis; it’s another for her family to stay committed when _she_ is the problem.”

“Okay,” Micah said slowly.

“Just…” Matt tried to smile. “Don’t leave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, Matt and Marci are so much fun and we never got to see them together. We should sue.
> 
> Oh and the deposition would totally not be expedited like that. But. Pacing. I'm trying, guys.


	15. The Reasons Why

Stone

Coming to this church was a mistake. He’d wanted to know what drew Matty back to this place over and over again, but now he found that he didn’t like the answer.

He hadn’t like listening to the nun’s attempts to unpack Matty’s mind.

He hadn’t liked the fact that, judging by Matty’s expression, she was more accurate than not.

He hadn’t liked that she’d known to leave after making her point, to touch Matty’s arm and disappear up the stairs and leave him alone to dissect what she’d said and find, on his own, that he agreed.

And Stone hadn’t liked that she’d offered to let him stay here and he hadn’t liked that, even though he had a perfectly good apartment of his own, half of him wanted to accept.

But Matty had immediately declared that Stone couldn’t stay there, which had settled the matter. “Of course I can stay,” Stone said. “I was just extended a very gracious offer by _your mother_.”

“You don’t get to go anywhere near her,” Matty snapped. “Since you’ve returned to Hell’s Kitchen, you’ve murdered multiple people in front of a sixteen-year-old boy and given a knife to a seven-year-old girl.”

He’d clearly thought he was making some kind of point. “Yes,” Stone said simply, “and you’ve managed to get said sixteen-year-old boy arrested for your own crimes and have completely ignored the seven-year-old girl who misses you enough that she began risking her neck by climbing roofs.”

A wall slid in front of Matty’s dull eyes as he smiled harshly. “I don’t have to justify myself to you and you don’t get to have an opinion about my life. Believe what you want about me, Stone. I don’t care.”

His heartbeat hadn’t faltered.

Well, Matty was entitled to his choice of allies and the fact that Stone had all but abandoned his other mission just to return to Hell’s Kitchen was, logically, not enough to create some kind of debt between them for Matty to repay. After Matty left—a nearly silent exit up the stairs—Stone had lingered long enough to stitch up the pillow he’d stabbed so impulsively, wondering if the nun would be offended that he was using surgical sutures.

She could throw out the pillow if she didn’t like it.

After that, Stone returned to his own apartment, which was smaller and colder and much emptier than the church basement, where at least no one was using him as some kind of demonstrative for lessons on romantic relationships. Still, ignorance of oneself was vulnerability to manipulation. And so he sat cross-legged on the thin sheet stretched across the bed and forced himself to put words to his emotions. It wasn’t worth trying to pretend that Matty’s belief in his words of rejection hadn’t stirred a sense of betrayal. Matty was clearly so different from Stone despite the commonalities of their histories, and yet there had still been some kind of connection between them that went further than mere allies. Or so Stone had thought, and he didn’t usually miscalculate so drastically.

Hence the sense of betrayal. Not from Matty, no. Matty could do what he wanted. Stone had betrayed himself with his own expectations.

Nodding once to himself, Stone made a mental note of the mistake.

But there was something else beneath it, which was disconcerting because betrayal was unpleasant enough. Stone concentrated on himself, on his past, on determining when and where else, exactly, he had felt this particular emotion.

Ah.

Stone uncrossed his legs and got himself a glass of water and dressed in muted black and gray. City camouflage. Making sure he had all his knives, he used the roof access to escape into the open air as evening fell. The Hand wasn’t here, that much was apparent, but he wanted a fight. He stood right on the edge of the roof so that the wind threatened to unbalance him and listened. That was what Matty did, apparently. It seemed the best way to find a fight that wasn’t gratuitous.

Sure enough, the sun was setting and Stone didn’t have to wait long before he heard a scream. He slunk away in that direction, leaving the feeling that he had been discarded behind.

 

Ella

“Matt, I’ve _missed_ you!”

He didn’t brace himself at all when she ran straight at him down the sidewalk from her house. She always remembered too late that he was usually hurt and maybe didn’t appreciate it when she knocked into him like that, but this time he didn’t seem worried, so maybe he wasn’t hurt. He swept her up into his arms, smooshing his face into her hair so she could feel him grinning, and his voice was deep in her ear when he told her he missed her too.

She wriggled a little in his grip, enough to free her arms so she could put her hands on his face, angling his head different directions to confirm what she already guessed. “You don’t _look_ like you’ve been fighting.” She couldn’t even see any bruises under his glasses.

“That’s because I haven’t been,” he answered. “There are other ways to help people.”

She was pretty sure he was still fighting a _little_ , but she was also pretty sure he was trying to set a good example for her, so she pretended to be convinced. “I’m not fighting as much either,” she said proudly.

“Good. I’m glad.”

“Yeah, I’m waiting until you teach me more so I can be better.”

He pulled back like he was staring her. “Wait, no. The point of training is that you only use what I teach you if you _have_ to.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. Wasn’t that obvious? “C’mon, let’s go paint!”

He let her drag him into the house. She barely gave him time to say hi to Maeva before pushing him into the dining room because she wanted to show him her brand new set of paintbrushes.

“See?” she chirped. “Micah and Maeva got them for me and there wasn’t even a _reason_.”

“There has to be a reason?” he asked, moving his fingers over the bristles and making a face when he ran into a drying clump of paint.

She wasn’t very thorough when she cleaned them. “It wasn’t my birthday or Christmas or anything. Micah just said I graduated to paintbrushes.” She waited, but Matt didn’t explain what that meant, so maybe he didn’t know either. “Do you want one?”

He grinned. “I think I’d better stick with finger-painting, actually. I need to be able to feel what I’m doing.”

There had to be a way for him to use paintbrushes. You could make so many cooler things with all the different types. Telling herself she’d think of something, she hopped into her chair and put Matt’s hand on his paper so he’d know where it was, then started the ritual of helping him touch all the little bowls of paint and explaining which colors were where. Maeva put a plate of cookies and napkins on the table, then scooted a chair into the corner of the room so she could work on her laptop and listen in.

Ella was used to it by now. In fact, it was a bit weird when she visited her old mom who didn’t do that, who had other things to do while Ella was playing.

Ella looked thoughtfully at her picture, wondering the best way to mix the colors so she could show a yellow sun shining on yellow flowers without the whole thing blurring together. “Matt, do you have a mom?”

In the corner, Maeva’s typing slowed down.

He didn’t answer right away, so she looked up to see that he had frozen uncertainly. Paint dripped from the finger he was holding above his paper. “Uh. Yes.”

“Do you see her very much?”

“Yeah. All the time.”

“Is she nice?”

He frowned. “Ella, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly, and stopped talking. The whole room was almost silent, which was maybe why Maeva started typing faster again. Ella spent several minutes trying to mix orange into the yellow for the flower petals while she figured out how to learn what she wanted to know. “Do you have _two_ moms?”

Maeva stopped typing entirely.

“Uh, no. Just one.” He turned towards her to show her that his face was serious and soft at the same time. “My mom wasn’t around when I was growing up and I was never adopted like you were.”

Oh. She tried not to feel disappointed, but couldn’t really help it. If he didn’t know what it was like, how could he help?

“Is there…” He hesitated. “Is there something else you want to ask me about?”

Yes. Yes, but she’d have to figure out how. He only had one mom and she was nice and, besides, he was a grownup. Other people couldn’t just decide things for him, like that he’d be better off somewhere else.

She shouldn’t feel disappointed. She should feel happy—happy for him that he was a grownup and happy for herself because even though maybe something would go wrong and she wouldn’t be able to live with Micah and Maeva anymore, at least she was with them _right now_. Matt never had anything like that. There hadn’t been any family for him to be taken away from.

Or…sent away from. Because that was the idea that really made Ella’s insides twist up. If the judge that took her away from her mom also decided to take her away from Micah and Maeva, that would be bad enough. But if Micah and Maeva decided to _send_ her away….

“Never mind,” she said.

Now he was wearing an expression that Micah got sometimes when he was talking about his job or looking up how to repair the sink, an expression that told her he wanted to fix something but wasn’t really sure how.

Ella studied him more carefully, then craned her neck to inspect his drawing. “Matt, are you sad?”

He tilted his head. “What makes you say that?”

“Your painting is all gray.”

He smiled softly. “Ella, I can’t see. I have no idea what color it is.”

“I know, but…” She scooted closer and put her hand over his, moving it to the bowls of paint. “You have all these different colors to choose from and you’re only using one. Do you not like different colors anymore? I know you can’t see them,” she interrupted as soon as he opened his mouth. “But you’ve always used lots different colors before.”

His forehead creased and he looked down like he was considering his painting, but she couldn’t tell if he was confused or…something else. “I guess I’m not really thinking about all the different colors right now.”

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

In her corner, Maeva’s typing slowed down again.

“Nothing,” Matt said. “Work stuff. Sorry, I’ll pay more attention.”

Bugging him about his colors was probably rude. Ella didn’t bring it up again, or bring up anything about moms. She told him about what she was learning about school and he asked her if she knew who Spiderman was, so she started making fun of him for not having a cool costume or webs or anything, and when he laughed she wished she could turn it into something visible because his laugh felt like the perfect shade of yellow.

He didn’t stay for dinner, though, even though Maeva offered. But he wasn’t able to leave in time to avoid Maeva pressing tupperware into his hands. “I’m cleaning out the fridge,” she explained casually. “I have to get rid of old leftovers.”

Well, Ella knew very well that Maeva made that casserole just a few hours ago because Maeva let her taste the sauce, so it was weird that Maeva was lying. And she was pretty sure Matt could tell, too—he could probably smell how fresh it was, or something like that, and Maeva should’ve known that. So it was even weirder that Maeva would lie when she should know that Matt wouldn’t believe her.

But Matt smiled a rare, shy smile when he took the tupperware and used his quiet voice to thank her and Ella realized there was some kind of strategy going on here. She felt a little surge of pride in her chest at Maeva’s genius. Maybe Matt already had a mom, but Ella wouldn’t mind sharing Maeva with him either.

 

Foggy

Foggy felt like he was wearing about five hats at once and at least one of them was a beret, which was unfortunate because Foggy did not look good in berets. He pushed back from the conference room table, which was cluttered with laptops and papers and takeout boxes, with Matt’s glasses buried in there somewhere. Waiting until Matt did an inquisitive little head tilt, Foggy took a deep breath. “Given the choice, I think we need to make sure Peter’s tried as a juvenile.”

The inquisitive head tilt did not lessen. “What convinced you?”

A delicate string of logic with a conclusion Matt would not appreciate. “We need to lean into his identity as a vigilante so he can get into protective custody if this thing goes sideways. Otherwise any sentence is a death sentence.”

“Agreed,” Matt said calmly, causing Foggy’s stomach flipped, which he desperately hoped Matt hadn’t noticed, “but that applies just as much in a jury trial.”

“Except that bringing up the risk to his safety gives us yet another reason to argue for his confidentiality, on top of his being a minor.” Foggy hesitated. “And talking about the safety risk sets better precedent for confidentiality that could be applied to…you know. Adults.”

“Like Jessica Jones,” Matt suggested, straight-faced.

Foggy threw a pencil at him. “Yeah, that’s exactly who I was thinking of.”

Matt caught it, obviously, and twirled it expertly between his fingers. “The—the precedent…” He stopped, and the twirling became something more like fidgeting. “I mean, thank you. For, uh, thinking about that.” Back to twirling. “But the precedent has to be a secondary concern. Peter’s the priority here, not me.”

“I thought we were talking about Jessica Jones,” Foggy said innocently. “Or what about the possibility that maybe I’d like to set precedent just for the fame and glory of it?”

Matt opened his mouth to argue, only to tilt his head when Foggy froze. “What?”

Nothing, he just could feel a sneeze coming and his nose was still broken, meaning the next five minutes were going to _suck_.

“Foggy?” Matt asked, eyes narrowing.

It was hard not to be mad at him for intruding on Foggy’s pain, especially since Foggy’s current pain was his fault in the first place, which would trigger immense guilt as soon as Matt realized. “I’m about to sneeze,” Foggy admitted gingerly, “and we’re both about to end up in tears.”

Matt’s eyebrows shot up. “Because?”

Foggy reached for the nearest Kleenex. “Because it’s gonna hurt like a—” He broke off with a yelp at the force of the sneeze and subsequent pain, eyes stinging.

Matt sprang to his feet like he was about to fight off a small army.

“I’m okay,” Foggy moaned, holding the tissues to his face. “Any ninja tricks for sneezing with a broken nose?”

“Don’t get a cold,” Karen shouted from outside the conference room.

She was heartless.

“I’ve only ever had one broken nose,” Matt admitted distractedly, still hovering over Foggy like he could magic the pain away through sheer force of will. “Stick taught me to keep my hands up pretty quick.”

Yeah, and Foggy was willing to bet that it was Stick’s lesson that had caused the broken nose in the first place.  Foggy was entertaining a brief fantasy of returning the favor when Karen stepped into the office with a steaming mug of…oh, hallelujah. Not coffee. Tea. Maybe she wasn’t so heartless after all.

Not that Foggy would ever say that out loud. He accepted the mug and tried to shoo Matt back to his seat. “I’m okay. Get back to work.”

“Foggy,” Matt said instead, slowly. “Why is your nose broken?”

Whoops. “Ran into a door, buddy.” It was half a joke and half sheer pettiness.

“Who did this?”

Foggy shot a nervous glance at Karen, whose eyes were wide as she stared at Matt. “You don’t…remember?”

Matt actually paled slightly.

Foggy’s words came out in a rushed tumble. “You were really messed up from devil’s hell and I got too close. It was my fault.”

Matt had no way to argue this, naturally, since he still couldn’t remember. He stepped very pointedly away from Foggy and started glaring helplessly at the shelving on the wall across from him.

“Hey,” Karen said softly. “Let’s refocus, hmm?”

Foggy wrinkled his nose experimentally and hissed in a breath because, yeah, that was stupid. “How soon will we be ready to meet with Tower?”

“We should do it tonight,” Matt said brusquely, which was excellent because it meant he was no longer freaking out over Foggy’s broken nose and it meant he was tacitly agreeing to Foggy’s plan. Maybe out of guilt, but, well, Foggy wasn’t complaining. “After seven. He’ll be getting back from the gym, high on endorphins.”

That was creepy, but also useful, so Foggy still wasn’t complaining. He picked up a sticky note with bullet points. “Main arguments to hit: Peter’s a kid, and if his identity gets out he’ll be ripped apart. Plus, Tower won’t want to go up against Spiderman’s public appeal. Peter isn’t the Punisher, it’s not like he goes around killing people to solve his problems.”

Karen stiffened.

“Foggy,” Matt said warningly.

Foggy remembered who he was talking to and picked up a pen, pointing it warningly at Matt. “I’m talking about deliberate, premeditated murder, by the way, so please don’t start feeling guilty for yet another thing because I do not have time for it.”

Matt frowned. “I can’t decide not to feel guilty just because you tell me to.”

“Friendly reminder that neither you nor Spiderman have ever actually wanted anyone dead,” Foggy insisted.

Matt opened his mouth, he was interrupted by Karen. “You guys want water?” she asked, voice strained. “I’m getting water.” She was out the door before either of them could respond. About three seconds later, the front door also opened and closed.

Oh.

Foggy felt a headache growing behind his eyes, possibly from his nose and possibly because the universe was punishing him for causing any sort of distress to Karen Page. “Geeze, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I’ll apologize once…” He trailed off.

Matt was standing perfectly still, apparently listening. Then he slumped down into his chair, staring blankly down at the desk and rubbing his forehead. Finally, he lifted his head and dragged his eyes up towards Foggy. “Help.”

Foggy blinked. “With what? That was my fault.”

Matt sighed heavily. “No, it’s mine.”

Giving up on getting anything done on Peter’s case for the next half hour at least, Foggy pushed his laptop aside. “Pretty sure you didn’t do anything wrong here, since I’m the one who just started talking about that right in front of her. Besides, I thought you guys already talked about, you know…” Was there any delicate way to put this? “Killing people.”

“We did,” Matt answered without any reluctance or stammering, which told Foggy that he was distancing himself from his personal memories. “That’s not the issue.”

Well, Foggy was inclined to think that this _issue_ wasn't as resolved as Matt thought. And…obviously, he loved Matt, but the guy definitely tended to take a pretty black-and-white approach to his beliefs, which could hardly be more unlike Karen. But one problem at a time; Matt was apparently worried about something a bit broader than his and Karen’s divergent approaches to manslaughter or murder. Foggy kept silent, hoping that he could wait Matt out until he explained.

But Matt just sat there, straining his jaw like that would keep the words locked away. Why? Were they really so shameful?

“Buddy,” Foggy said quietly.

Matt closed his eyes. “She deserves better.”

Tread carefully, Nelson. “Better than you?”

Matt looked like he was about to agree, then wisely changed direction. “Better than…what I’ve been doing. Recently.”

“What _have_ you been doing recently?”

“Not much,” he muttered.

Foggy sighed. “Matt, she works at a law firm and right now we have the biggest case since the Castle trial. In fact, the only reason it’s not as big as the Castle trial is because Tower doesn’t want to deal with the backlash from all the little kids writing letters asking him to let Spiderman go. It’s fine if you some of your dates are over depositions. But if she wants to be more involved, maybe—”

“She helped me work with Peter’s aunt,” Matt interrupted, monotone. “And she came up with the idea that helped us track down Sons of Satan in the first place, and she’s found like half the cases we’re using. She’s been brilliant.”

“Okay, then…I don’t really get what’s wrong.”

Matt’s sightless eyes were boring a hole through the table.

Foggy got up and sat on the edge of the table, closer to his best friend. “What is it?”

Matt hesitated. “She…” He swallowed. “You didn’t hear her heartbeat.”

Foggy narrowed his eyes.

“Just now, when you were talking about whether Peter’s ever killed anyone. It…” His head tilted. “Her heartbeat sounded like it used to, back during the Castle trial, whenever you or I would talk about…about what we thought of Frank. And I just thought she was scared, you know?”

Oh.

“But it was never just that.” Matt lowered his head into his hands, voice becoming muffled. “She’d already shot Wesley. Not in self-defense. Well.” He breathed out slowly. “Not just in self-defense.”

Stupid, stupid Nelson. “I know. I told you, I wasn’t thinking. I’ll apologize. I’ll bring chocolate muffins. Seriously. This—all of this—is my fault.”

Matt lifted his head. “ _How_ can you think that? When…after Wesley, _you_ were the one who was there for her while I was lying to her and trying not to bleed to death from Nobu.”

“I wasn’t there,” Foggy said slowly. “Neither of us were.” He’d spent more time with Marci and random bars and Karen…she’d reached out to him for his sake, but never to ask for help.

Matt blinked, then blinked again, then moved his hand over the table until he, to Foggy’s shock, found his sunglasses and slipped them on. Foggy almost looked over his shoulder to see if someone else had come in, but no.

Foggy couldn’t remember the last time Matt had worn his glasses when it was just the two of them.

The red lenses glinted in the overhead light. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing,” he said. “But I need her to know that I won’t leave her.”

Foggy felt a pang of sadness. “What makes you think she doesn’t know that?”

His mouth twisted incredulously.

Foggy weighed his words…because Matt _had_ left. Matt left both of them, multiple times. “I dunno, man. I think you just have to give it more time.”

“Time,” Matt repeated impassively.

 

Matt

If there was one area of his life where he still felt like he knew what he was doing, it was Peter’s case. He and Foggy were as prepared as they’d ever been with arguments and case law and more arguments where there wasn’t case law, since there wasn’t exactly a collection of existing cases explaining what it meant to be an enhanced vigilante.

Even better, Tower was just as relaxed and confident post-workout as Matt had anticipated. He went so far as to usher both Foggy and Matt into his office that night. The office was an odd contrast to what Matt would’ve expected. It was full of the smell of books, as with most law offices, but also gun powder from the police officers who frequented it, and it smelled far cleaner than Nelson, Murdock, and Page where the scent of their clients’ desperation lingered long after their cases settled.

“Spiderman?” Tower prompted, sinking into his chair—still relaxed, but also checking his phone. He wanted to get out of the office.

Matt and Foggy remained standing; Foggy glanced toward Matt as if gauging his read of the situation.

“We’ll be brief and let you head home,” Matt promised. “To get straight to the point, the defendant is a sixteen-year-old kid, and I don’t think anyone in this room actually believes that Spiderman used anything but his webs in that fight. He should be diverted and you know it.”

“You have discretion whether to prosecute,” Foggy added. “Just take a moment and think about what the people want.”

Tower sighed. “The people want a response to devil’s hell and they want me to uphold the laws, not let any guy in a skintight suit do whatever he feels like just because he runs around with Captain America.”

“It’s Spiderman,” Matt cut in flatly. “Everyone loves Spiderman. Now, if we were talking about Daredevil, that might be different, but—”

“Actually, wait,” Foggy said, fabric rustling as he folded his arms across his chest. “I wanna talk about Daredevil for a second.”

What?

“What?” Tower asked.

“You’re the district attorney,” Foggy began, “responsible for keeping the people of Hell’s Kitchen safe. But you can’t do it on your own. You can only do that after the bad guys are already arrested, isn’t that right?”

“Are you cross-examining me, Counselor?”

Something dangerous slipped into Foggy’s voice. “How many of the bad guys have been arrested thanks to Daredevil? I have the answer to that, by the way.”

What?

Foggy set his shoulders back. “About thirty percent of arrests in Hell’s Kitchen have been somehow connected to Daredevil, and that’s a conservative estimate. Those numbers come from four different news sources, by the way, all based on interviews with your office.”

“This case is about Spiderman,” Tower countered. “Not Daredevil.”

“Actually, no, because both of them are doing the same thing—helping this city.” Foggy leaned forward slightly on the balls of his feet, the posture of a cross examination. “You might not appreciate _how_ they do it, but don’t tell me for a second that you don’t enthusiastically appreciate that they do it.”

“It’s not about what I appreciate, it’s about—”

“So you do appreciate it.”

“—it’s about the law. Which they’re breaking.”

“True,” Foggy said, settling back on his heels and letting his voice shift into something that was strong and soft at the same time—he was giving a closing argument now. “But as the DA, you have discretion to prosecute. I’m not saying this because I’m scared we’ll lose to you, I’m saying this because the kid is sixteen.” He paused. “And I’m saying it because we live in a world with the Avengers and enhanced vigilantes and it’s time you start thanking them for what they’re doing instead of punishing them for helping people when you and the police just can’t.”

Matt concentrated on...concentrating. This was about Peter, not Daredevil, whatever Foggy said. Foggy was an amazing lawyer and he knew to leverage every argument in his favor.  He wasn’t talking about Matt.

Except that even if it wasn’t _about_ him, Matt couldn’t quite convince himself that none of it had been somehow…for him. It seemed arrogant to think that he deserved anything Foggy had just said…and yet. In the middle of that speech, Foggy’s voice had also slipped into a unique tone, one that Matt was more used to hearing in the context of late nights at the office or Netflix marathons. It was a tone Foggy only ever used just for Matt, and only when Foggy thought absolutely nothing was wrong between them. It was a tone Matt coveted, and one that absolutely did not belong in the district attorney’s office.

And yet.

Tower shifted his weight in his chair. “My job is to prosecute.”

“So prosecute the bad guys,” Foggy said flatly. “Use your very limited tax-funded resources to stop the people who are gonna go out and kill again, rape again, steal again. Not the people who’re stopping them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to Soulfire for referring to blood as "spicing" the air because that's basically my favorite phrase ever.
> 
> And to those of you who miss Spiderman, I promise he'll be back soon. Things just have to go, like, super wrong first.


	16. Go Astray

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: whump and a cliffhanger. (It was that or make this chapter stupidly long.)

Dex

Maggie hadn’t been by in a while. They texted, sometimes, but texts were worthless. For all Dex knew, the texts weren’t even from her. Anyone else could’ve picked up her phone and read through the old messages, and then they’d know what to say in order to sound like her. Maybe something happened to Maggie and someone stole her phone and was trying to pretend like everything was normal. Maybe Maggie had finally gotten sick of him and given her phone to someone else. “Pretend to be me,” she’d said. “He won’t know the difference.”

Dex told himself not to be paranoid and told himself he didn’t care either way because he didn’t need her. Then he told himself to go do something else to distract himself whenever the imaginary stone thief actually talked back to Maggie, agreeing with her plan, assuring her that, yes, Dex would never know the difference.

Dex knew the difference. He knew the difference between imagination and reality, and he knew the difference between when Maggie texted him and when it was a stranger, and he definitely knew that he woman sitting in front of him now was not part of a dream because if she was, he would’ve killed her with the pin securing her hair out of her face.

“It wasn’t easy to get in to see you, Agent,” Vanessa said.

She was real. She was as real as the handcuffs keeping him from killing her, and she was dangerous, and Dex kept his mouth shut.

“How long have you been in here?”

He didn’t even know. Was actively trying not to think about it.

“I’m sorry this happened to you.” Her voice thickened slightly. “I wanted to thank you for acquiring that painting that meant so much to Wilson.” She must have seen something in him when she said Fisk’s name because her eyes softened. “I’m sorry about Julie.”

“ _You_ ,” he snarled, “don’t get to say her name.”

Vanessa spoke clearly. “I had nothing to do with what happened to her. Wilson should have seen that she had nothing to do with his plans. It was wrong of him to involve her.”

“Stop talking about her.”

“All right,” she whispered. Then glanced down and to the side. It was too guilty and nervous a glance to be genuine from someone like her. “How much time is left on your sentence?”

Each morning, he pretended he only had a day left. Each night, he was disappointed.

She glanced back towards him, this time with a wry smile that looked much more real. “I imagine you must hate the fact that I am not locked up with you. You must think I deserve it, even though I had nothing to do with…what happened.”

She might actually be telling the truth, but it didn’t make a difference. “Fisk doesn’t deserve a happily ever after. But as long as you’re free, he _gets_ his happily ever after.”

“Well, then you’ll be glad to hear that I might not be free much longer.”

His ears perked up. “Really?”

“There are rumors of a case pending against me. It hasn’t been brought yet, but it will be.” She sighed, laying a manicured hand on the table and tapping a lulling rhythm. “I don’t know yet exactly what they have on me, so I can’t be confident as to how it might turn out.”

Good. Good. The police, doing exactly what they were supposed to do. He wished he were with them. Didn’t they realize how much he could help?

“Now, Dex, if I—”

“Agent,” he interrupted, sitting up straighter. “Agent Poindexter.”

She smiled. “Of course. Agent, if I get put away, it won’t be anywhere you can reach me. You won’t have any opportunity to kill me. Which, of course, is what you want. I understand that.”

She did? She _should_.

“Can I be abruptly transparent, Agent? I wouldn’t be here talking to you if I didn’t want something from you.” Her nails kept tapping away. She raised one eyebrow. “But I don’t think you’d be here listening to me if you didn’t want something from me as well. You’re smarter than that.”

This was just manipulation. Tricks.

“You want to be out of this cage. You want to be free, not just physically but free to be your true self. And I…” Her lips curved. “Well, I need someone who’s just like you.”

Just like him…how?

The rhythm shifted until it perfectly matched his heartbeats. That had to be a coincidence. “It’s not that hard for one person to disappear,” she said, “even an agent as famous as you. I don’t have the resources to simply shuffle some paperwork to set you free, but I know the people who could cause you to be transferred. And I have authority over most of Wilson’s connections now. Once you’re on the road…well, anything could happen to you.”

A threat, or an opportunity?

“I could make it happen, but I’d rather do it with your agreement. Your cooperation. Because I think that once you’re free, we can help each other.”

He found his voice. “What makes you think I’d ever want to help you?”

She held his gaze. “Because, Agent, I’m never going to pretend that you’re anything but what you are.”

 

Matt

He was trying to meditate, a goal complicated by Frank nosing insistently at his hands, apparently bored.

“Go away,” he said.

She did not.

“Frank.”

She licked his fingers and let out a tiny, impatient bark.

Why did he get a dog, again?

His head snapped to the window. Someone was screaming. Welcoming the invitation to at least get away from Frank for a few hours, he gave her a perfunctory scratch behind the ears and stood up, rolling his shoulders once to work out the stiffness. He unlocked the closet and opened the chest, but before he could get his Daredevil stuff out from the bottom of it, he made the mistake of brushing his hand over his dad’s robe.

His throat inexplicably tightened.

What was wrong with him?

He got onto the roofs as fast as possible. Stone’s scent crisscrossed Hell’s Kitchen and tonight, it was fresh. An encounter with Stone was the last thing Matt wanted right now, causing him to feel oddly trapped in his own territory. It wasn’t like there was a lot of room in Hell’s Kitchen for two angry vigilantes to avoid each other. Matt tracked down a pair of men cornering a woman in a parking garage and followed her to make sure she got home safely, but after that, there wasn’t much disturbance.

Well, there was Stone; the air around him was laden with heavy copper, his blood mixing with the blood of his enemies. Matt also heard two would-be victims running away, assuring him that Stone’s enemies were indeed criminals. Four of them still standing, but Stone hadn’t killed anyone yet. There was no need for Matt to get involved. Still, he drifted closer just in case.

A second later, something small cracked and split, filling the air with devil’s hell’s aroma.

Matt skirted even closer. Stone was backed up against a wall, his movements now jerkier with something verging on desperation. He knew how to handle knives, could walk away from a stab wound, but syringes? The stakes skyrocketed. Matt sprinted towards the alley, flipping down from a fire escape to land silently behind one of the assailants. He grabbed the man’s arm and yanked him backwards, driving his left elbow into the back of his neck and twisting to crush his right elbow into the side of the man’s skull. The man thrashed, but the moves were clumsy. Another strike to his temple put him on the ground.

“Thank you,” Stone muttered, dodging a syringe.

Taken aback by the sincerity, Matt almost ducked too late when one of the criminals threw a right hook towards his face. The fist broke against the brick wall behind him, bones shattering and skin ripping. The man’s curses filled Matt’s ears.

Beneath the curses, he heard one of Stone’s knives slice through the air, straight towards an assailant’s heart. _Not again._ Matt grabbed the would-be victim, dragging him out of Stone’s reach, but the man whipped around faster than Matt expected. One hand clawed at Matt’s face while the other…the other lashed out and a needle tore into Matt’s arm.

The syringe pushed a foreign liquid into his body. Matt kicked the man away and followed up with his batons, fighting with everything he had until his attacker was reduced to bloodstained pulp quivering on the ground.

Stone was still locked in combat with whoever was left, and Matt half-turned to help him before his brain caught up with his senses and he realized exactly what had happened. His body went ice-cold, but not from the drug now making its way through his system. The cold was nothing but sheer terror, and the terror would last, but the cold wouldn’t. No, soon he’d be burning up in his own personal hell.

His heart started racing despite his best efforts to calm down. That wasn’t the drug either, that was just more panic. He could not afford panic right now, not with a full syringe emptied into him. But last time…last time had been bad enough.

He couldn’t do this again.

The final assailant was on the ground. Stone returned to Matt’s side. “While I appreciate you coming by, I admit I’m a bit surprised why you—” He cut himself off. “What happened?”

Matt focused on controlling his breathing, slipping his batons into the holsters strapped to his leg before he lost his grip on them. “I’m, uh…”

There was a sudden, sharp pain: Stone pulling the needle from his skin. “You’re dosed.”

“I’m…yeah. Guess so.” His breathing was too fast, too shallow. Matt clenched his jaw, angry with himself. It hadn’t even hit him yet, he’d know when it hit him, why couldn’t he just _calm down_. “I need to, um…” He wet his lips, started tapping his index finger rapidly against his thigh. Caught himself. Tried to hold still. “I really need to not be here.”

Stone swore softly. “There’s a hospital not far from—”

“No, no, can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

Swallowing, he squeezed his eyes shut. “I just can’t.” Forget about fact that there was no way he could explain his scars and his injuries, Claire said hospitals were bad enough for normal victims. With everything he was about to hear and smell and _see_ …and the thought of strangers surrounding him, examining him with morbid curiosity about how hallucinations might affect the blind man…no. He reached into his pocket, held out the phone. “Call Claire. The nurse. Please, I…” He tried to swallow again, but his mouth was dry. “First number.”

Swearing again—in Italian, this time, it sounded like—Stone took the phone.

Matt edged backwards until he could lean against the wall, because, _whoa_ , vertigo. But it was gonna be fine. He was gonna be fine. It was just hard to convince himself when he could smell his own fear, stuck in a vicious feedback loop. And it wasn’t even…it wasn’t even that bad yet.

True, he was definitely feeling some of the effects he’d felt last time. He tried to remember them, like ticking off a list in his head would help. He needed something to focus on because this was only gonna get worse. He needed to stay calm. Keep control and meditate through the hallucinations. Assuming that was possible. He hadn’t even thought to try last time, and at least this time he knew what was coming. That had to help, right? He just had to get somewhere safe enough for meditation.

Stone appeared beside him. “We’re meeting her at my apartment. It’s close.”

“Good,” Matt breathed, then got stuck wondering when, exactly, Stone’s apartment had become something he thought of as _safe_.

“Can you manage rooftops?” Stone asked doubtfully.

Didn’t have much of a choice. “Yeah.” Matt kind of pushed off the wall with the back of his head and immediately threw out a hand for balance. “Le’sgo.”

“Very convincing.”

“Stone.” Matt’s voice was too loud in his own ears and he tried to wet his lips again, but his tongue was a desert. “Please, can we just…”

Stone didn’t answer, but he did grab Matt’s hand and awkwardly put it against his own elbow. “This is how you do it, isn’t it?”

It took Matt a second to realize Stone was trying to lead him. He shook his head. “Just go. I’ll follow.”

“You first.” Stone’s voice was sharp. Angry, almost. “In case you fall.”

If he weren’t so distracted by his own thundering heart, Matt would probably feel embarrassed. Instead, he focused on gripping the metal of a fire escape and pulling himself upwards. He climbed faster than was probably smart, almost slipping once, but what if he got caught out here in the open when it hit? Once the hallucinations started, he wouldn’t know where he was or which way to go. Moving wouldn’t be an option; he’d be a sitting duck, and so would anyone stupid enough to try to help him.

He rolled onto the metal floor at the top of the fire escape but crouched to block Stone from joining him. “You called Claire?”

“She’ll meet us. Move,” Stone ordered.

But Matt planted himself at the mouth of the fire escape. “Look, if I don’t make it to your apartment in time—”

“ _Move_.” Stone shoved at him, but Matt had the high ground and much better leverage.

“If I get stuck out here, promise me you won’t let Claire come and promise me you’ll leave.” Then it struck him, the thought of actually being alone through…through whatever was coming. He desperately wanted Foggy again, but asking for Foggy now would be unforgivably selfish. “Promise you’ll leave if…if there’s danger.” But not if there wasn’t danger, please.

He was such a coward.

“From what, the pigeons?” Stone shoved harder, then pulled out a knife. “If you don’t stop being a martyr, I’ll force you back myself.”

Matt was far less scared of a knife right now. He didn’t flinch. “Just tell me.” He needed to hear his heartbeat.

“Fine,” Stone spat. “I’ll leave you alone to die on a roof.” But he didn’t even try to sound sincere.

“Stone, I can’t—” Matt broke off with a yelp as the knife slashed against his left shin. He wavered not from pain but from surprise, or maybe that was the drug messing with the whole world. Regardless, it was all Stone needed to shoot past him and make it onto the roof, leaving Matt with little choice but to follow.

Well. He _could_ stay here on this fire escape. But he was imagining facing Foggy and Maggie and Karen if he survived this—of course he’d survive this, only a handful of people had died, right? Right? He couldn’t remember—and confessing that, yeah, he’d just _given up_ on a stupid fire escape.

No way. Grinding his teeth together, he hauled himself upright and joined Stone on the roof.

The air was clearer here. It helped. Matt just…didn’t know where they were going anymore. And his leg was bleeding a lot. Wouldn’t be hard for someone to follow the trail, and if the trail took them back to Foggy or Karen or…he swerved to the right.

Stone grabbed the back of his shirt yet again and pulled him away from the edge. “Wrong way.”

“My apartment…”

“Is farther away,” Stone snapped. “We’re going to my place. I told you.”

Yeah, okay, that did sound vaguely like a conversation that might have happened at some point. And Matt didn’t really feel too bad about leaving a blood trail to Stone’s place. Stone could defend himself, and besides, it was Stone’s fault that Matt was bleeding this much anyway.

So Matt turned in the correct direction, but then a siren screamed somewhere beneath them and he flinched against Stone’s warmth, and that was nice, that was familiar, but Stone shoved him away. “Sorry,” Matt mumbled. “Where…”

Stone muttered something. “Follow me, and don’t fall off.”

Easier said than done. But at least maintaining balance was something Matt could focus on, something to help block out everything else. He made one successful jump despite the people yelling, the neon crackling, a bird screeching, cars and horns and a subway beneath them. He heard Stone land behind him, but Matt was focusing on forward motion when all of a sudden he realized that his hands were shaking.

And now that he was paying attention, he could also tell that the temperature in his fingers had decreased ever so slightly. Actually, the temperature of all his extremities had decreased. Was decreasing. Unless this was part of the hallucinations? But he was pretty sure they hadn’t hit yet. Besides, most of his symptoms should be from devil’s hell, but his skin was supposed to be hot, not cold, yet the only heat he felt was from the blood still dripping down his leg.

Matt halted abruptly. The new fear that propelled him to rip off his mask wasn’t drug-induced.

“Not the time for sight-seeing,” Stone said, pushing him.

Stumbling, Matt caught himself on Stone’s arm. “I’m bleeding.”

“Not an abnormality.”

“I’m _bleeding out_.”

“What, right this minute?”

“You stabbed me!” Matt’s voice was half an octave higher than normal as he sat down clumsily. His fingers felt numb, but they knew what to do as they wrapped his mask around the stab wound. It wouldn’t make enough of a difference, though, wouldn’t save him, because didn’t Claire say something about… “The drug has a blood thinner. I’m…I’m gonna…”

Oh, God.

Suddenly everything was against him. Hell’s Kitchen. Stone’s blade. The drug and time itself working with his own body to kill him. His heart wouldn’t slow down. It needed to slow down. He needed to just meditate for a second, but he probably wouldn’t have a second before the hallucinations took over and then he’d be stuck, but he couldn’t make Claire come find him on a rooftop but without her he’d bleed to death or the drug would just stop his heart.

Stone’s fingers took over and cinched the mask painfully tight around his leg. “You’re not dying on my watch. Get up.”

Matt hid his exposed face in his knees, trying to stop obsessing on his accelerating pulse driving the life from his body. At least it was still going, that was something, that was….

It stopped.

He lurched forward, pressing his hands to the gash across Conway’s chest. But there was no pulse, just a dead man still bleeding sluggishly.

Rough hands pulled him to his feet. “Matty, _get up_.”

Matt rotated his hand to press his fingers to the vein under Stone’s wrist. “The, uh…” Stone’s pulse was a single point of clarity while the rest of Matt’s world blurred the past, present, and future together. “It’s starting.”

“One more building, that’s all I need from you. You can do that much.”

Matt nodded tightly. He could do it. He could smell Stone’s room, now that he thought of it. Locking onto the scent, he strode forward.

But Stone scrambled in front of him, pushing him backwards. “Was that your plan? Just walk off?”

Stone’s apartment was straight ahead, why…oh, it was a different building from the one he was currently standing on. Directly in front of him was nothing but empty space, undulating like the ocean. Matt clenched his teeth against welling nausea. Don’t throw up, please don’t throw up in front of Stone, that would be humiliating.

He tried to focus, but he had no idea where the gap began or where it ended. The world on fire was warped. Blinking in and out of existence. He stayed frozen, not daring to move. Maybe he’d land safely or maybe he’d break his neck on the street below.

“Win-win,” someone whispered. “Just jump.”

He batted a trembling hand through empty air, but Stone grabbed his arm and pushed it back down to his side. “Come on, Matty, it’s right in front of you.”

He reached out one foot, feeling for the edge, and things started to make sense as he pressed the ball of his foot against the brink, but then any sensation of a roof underneath vanished entirely and he sprang backwards, away from the limitless abyss.

Stone snatched his wrist, dragging him back to the edge. “Wrong direction, moron.”

“Stop, stop, stopstopstop!” Wrenching free, Matt fell to his knees and pressed his hands against the gritty roof, because at least that felt real, at least that was solid ground. The left leg of his pants was soaked and warm and his heart was pounding so fast and he still couldn’t get it to slow down. “Give me a second.”

“You don’t have a second. If you don’t get inside where your nurse can help you, _you will die_.”

Horrifying logic. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He pushed himself to his feet and immediately lurched to the side. Again, Stone caught him. Again, Matt wanted to just stay there, with one of Stone’s arms around him. Grounded.

But again, Stone released him. Actually, not all the way. He kept one hand on Matt’s shoulder, guiding him to the edge. “A little less than four and a half meters.”

Was that supposed to make sense? “…What?”

“Just jump, before you get worse!”

There was something new in Stone’s voice, something beneath all the anger, and Matt’s brain finally recognized it as fear, which was so in sync with what he was already feeling that he didn’t question it. He threw himself off the edge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confession: these whump chapters are my faves to write.


	17. Frightening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: one more cliffhanger. I'm so sorry.

Stone

The leap was graceless. It was like Matty was hurling himself blindly into nothingness. Which might have been exactly what it felt like to him.

But Stone was counting on muscle memory to make up for whatever lies his senses were telling him, and sure enough, Matty’s jump was more outwards than upwards and he landed with at least a meter of safety behind him.

Immediately, Stone jumped after him, lest he stumble backwards. “Keep going, you’re almost there.”

A dog barked down below, some shrill and yappy thing. Matty shrank away from the sound, then took two steps forward and halted, arms wrapped around his stomach, skin pale. “Please, no.” It was so quiet that Stone was certain he hadn’t been supposed to hear.

But they couldn’t quit now. Stone gave him a prod from behind, which was all it took for him to double over with his hands on his knees, heaving up his last meal.

As soon as he was done, Stone held his breath and grabbed him once again by the back of his shirt, pulling him upright to steer him around the mess towards the door with roof access. Matty stumbled, then flipped around and sent his fist sailing into Stone’s face without any warning.

Pain arced behind Stone’s eyes as his nose broke, blood dripping down into his mouth. His own free hand formed a fist at his side, but he kept a firm grip on Matty, holding him in place so he could get the door open.

As soon as Matty crossed the threshold, he stopped dead and gagged again, this time in wretched futility. Ignoring this, Stone steered Matty onto the bed, pushing him down. Well, trying to. Matty cooperated for perhaps two seconds before jerking to his feet and careening off the edge of the bed, crashing straight to the floor.

Maybe the floor was better, anyway.

Matty pushed himself into a sitting position and remained upright, no longer swaying. In fact, his posture was tense and he held himself eerily still, allowing Stone to move closer until their faces were barely apart. His pupils were dilated, jet-black disks swallowing up the hazel. Interesting that this effect remained, despite the nonreaction to light. Stone wanted to study it, pin down exactly what stimuli triggered changes to the pupil, responses. But this was clearly not the time.

“Stone?” The name was a whisper.

“It’s just me. You’re fine.”

“I don’t…” His eyes flickered desperately around the room. “I can’t…”

“Shh.” And because Matty was finally safe within four actual walls, and because no one was around to witness it, and because Matty himself would apparently not remember, Stone put his hand around the back of Matty’s neck and drew him closer until their foreheads were pressed together. “You’re fine. I’m here.”

 

Karen

Karen was not afraid as she walked down the street, too late at night for it to be safe for a single woman. But she had her gun. And if that somehow failed, at least Matt would hear her.

Being afraid of the night was something instinctual when she moved to New York. When she was a little girl in Vermont, she’d been terrified of snakes and bobcats if she was ever out past dark, but then she grew up and learned how to use a gun, which turned out to be a pretty effective cure for fearing not just wildlife but also any strange men who might follow her down the barren roads. When she first moved to New York, she’d spent a week double-locking her front door and her bedroom door in her apartment and she still kept a knife on her nightstand.

But she’d also learned which places to avoid, and so it wasn’t that bad. Besides, she had her gun, which she was now holding lightly in her purse as she turned a corner, sticking to the sidewalk and keeping track of which streetlights were out.

Then Daniel Fisher had died because her need to solve mysteries spilled over into his life, and he’d left a little boy behind and she’d wound up in jail. After that, she’d thought she’d at least figured out how to keep her guard up. Like now, as she glanced over her shoulder when she thought she heard footsteps behind her. The yellowish streetlights revealed nothing threatening. Maybe Vanessa’s drugs were actually scaring everyone enough to stay inside at night. Matt was probably so bored right now.

And then…Wesley.

So maybe she hadn’t been as good at keeping her guard up as she’d thought. But at least she’d walked away.

But she hadn’t recovered from shooting Wesley by the time of Frank’s case. Not that…not that you ever really recovered from this kind of thing. But the point was, Frank’s case had been just shy of unbearable—not because of the facts of his case but because of the attitudes of the two lawyers who were supposed to be advocating for him.

It _would’ve_ been unbearable if she hadn’t had a separate mystery to solve. Yes, she’d been impulsive. Reckless. But at least she’d gotten some distance from Foggy freaking out over bloody images and Matt pontificating about God and morality and judgment and death.

Karen’s feet stuttered when a shadow moved across the street. The guy who emerged from the alley started off going up the street, but the hairs on the back of her neck stood up even as she walked away in the opposite direction.

At this point, she was wondering if anyone would even believe that she’d never agreed to this kind of relationship with death. Her brother, Daniel Fisher, Elena, Ben, Grotto, Jasper Evans, Father Lantom. Death never asked how she felt about it stalking her and it never checked to see if she’d rather deal with death all on its own without bringing guilt along, too. It had done her the courtesy of _introducing_ itself to her without guilt—not even her child’s imagination had been able to twist her mother’s death into something that was her fault—but, since then, had always chose guilt as its twisted plus-one.

The guilt was bad enough when the deaths had been (mostly) accidents. But she’d killed Wesley—vindictive pleasure with every pull of the trigger. Still, she’d hoped that maybe Wesley was the exception to the rule.

She still hoped. But she was losing her belief in herself.

After what Fisk did to so many people in Hell’s Kitchen? After what Dex did at the Bulletin and the church, and what he tried to do to Foggy? After the scar in Matt’s side from the bullet he’d taken that Dex had intended for Ella? After what Vanessa did to Agent Nadeem? After the drug she’d released on the city?

It was nicer to think that Fisk and Vanessa and Dex should die because death would stop them from doing more damage…but it wasn’t about prevention. Not for her. Not with them. Not anymore.

They should die because they deserved it. Because Karen hated living day after day with the knowledge that they still existed.

And so the other day, when Foggy was was insisting that everyone loved Spiderman because he never killed anyone, and _oh by the way, Matt, don’t feel guilty because you aren’t a bad person because you never wanted Conway dead_...yeah, she'd run away like a coward, but she'd also found herself a mission. Matt had been going on and on about his frustration with Tower’s attempt to admit newspaper articles, whereas Foggy had gone on and on about how the last thing Tower needed was a media storm surrounding the trial of Spiderman. Matt successfully excluded the negative press, but Matt and Foggy weren’t trying to admit the positive press into evidence—they were just using it to pressure Tower outside the context of the trial itself.

Well, she could help with that. She'd called Ellison straight after leaving the office. 

Now she she stopped outside the little diner where she’d used to meet Ben and checked her phone. There were old voice messages from Matt and Foggy, who’d both tried to call her for an hour straight after she’d left the office. Nice of them, but futile. She dropped her phone back into her bag and the door groaned on its hinges as she stepped inside.

Ellison was already waiting for her in a booth with two coffees. The bell over the door hadn’t even stopped chiming when he was on his feet, moving straight towards her. She was too stunned to resist when he put his arms around her.

“Good to see you, Karen,” he whispered fiercely. “How are you? How’s things?”

“It’s nice being my own boss,” she said a little pointedly, but she returned the hug with as much warmth as she could.

He didn’t apologize for firing her, nor for giving her the ultimatum in the first place. But she didn’t really expect him to. Instead, he led her to the booth and plunked down opposite her, rubbing at his eyes behind his glasses. “You’d better have something good. I’m missing dinner with the in-laws for this.”

“Oh, it’s good.” She slid the file of _Bugle_ articles across the desk.

He flipped through it, then glanced up skeptically. “What, Spiderman?”

“I want you to write some counter-articles.”

He raised his eyebrows. Disappointed. “Karen, you know that’s not how this works. We need actual interest from the public. Find me a brand new superhero and I’ll write about that.”

Or give him Daredevil’s name. She narrowed her eyes. “Well, I have reason to believe there’ll be a lot of interest in Spiderman. Soon.”

“Soon isn’t _now_.”

To this day, she wasn’t sure if he was resistant because he actually needed convincing or because he thought his reporters would write better if they had to fight for their stories. “Trust me, it’ll be big. Besides, the guy’s practically an Avenger and some people have spotted him in Hell’s Kitchen. Isn’t that newsworthy?”

“Why?” Ellison scrutinized her. “Think he and Daredevil will fight over territory?”

Folding her arms across her chest, she met his gaze calmly. If he thought she’d give up Daredevil’s identity just to get him to write about Spiderman, he’d be disappointed. She had plenty of other ways of getting what she wanted. “Two superheroes in Hell’s Kitchen is interesting enough no matter what they’re doing here, don’t you think? Besides, you can challenge the _Bugle_. Get people debating. Start some social media wars.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Got any eyewitnesses ready to go?”

“Interview people at the border of Queens and Hell’s Kitchen,” she said dismissively.

“So you don’t. Or, let me guess, _you_ saw something but you can’t tell me about it for some reason.”

She tried to force her lips into a smile. “Let it go.”

For a long moment, he just stared back. Then he heaved a sigh and sagged a little in his seat. “You’re right, that was out of line. I just miss my best reporter, that’s all.”

Well, then he shouldn’t have fired her. She picked up the articles and rustled them in the air. “I’m still giving you this lead, a lead no other paper in Hell’s Kitchen has found yet. And this story’s just gonna get bigger.” Because regardless of whether Peter’s case went to a jury, it shouldn’t be that hard to tie Spiderman to devil’s hell since Matt insisted that the drug was the reason Peter came to Hell’s Kitchen in the first place.

Ellison rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. You’re good, Karen, but you’re asking me to take a lot on faith here.”

“Not really,” she said simply. “You know me.”

“Still a leap of faith.”

“But it’s based on what you know of me,” she insisted. “You _know_ I’m good at this.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I think you might be overestimating how much I really know about you.”

She just looked at him, then looked deliberately down at the coffee he’d bought for her. Slowly, she lifted the mug to her lips and sipped. She glanced back up at him. “You got my order right.”

He scoffed, but then he waggled his fingers until she handed the articles over.

 

Claire

Caring about Matt Murdock was so freaking irritating.

She’d _told_ him. She told him not to mess with this stuff, and look what he did. The boy needed to be wrapped up in bubble wrap as soon as possible. Actually, no, he’d probably find a way to weaponize the bubble wrap. One of these days she'd just ship him off to some quaint rural town where the biggest threat was cows.

At least she could count climbing all these stairs in this cruddy apartment building as her cardio for the day. Her butt would probably look fantastic by tomorrow.

Her bag thumped against her thigh as she reached to knock on the door, but before her knuckles could brush the surface it was opened by an Italian ninja (apparently?) who waved her inside while glowering like she was a pizza boy late on delivery.

She knew Stone. Well, technically, she knew _of_ Stone. There hadn’t been much time for introductions when they’d raced Matt to that clinic to stop him from bleeding out from that bullet wound, but she recognized his severe features and the knife in a sheathe strapped to his leg. His nose was clearly freshly broken, bloodstains drying on his face and even smeared in his longish dark hair. He didn’t seem to have noticed.

She flicked on the light (did ninjas have some kind of aversion to light as a species, or did they just not need it?) and swore under her breath when the single bulb in the ceiling cast a paltry glow over her patient. Matt was sitting on the floor (no carpet, no rug, no nothing) like he was trying to meditate, but given how much he was flinching at nightmares only he could perceive, she didn’t think it was helping. She pressed her fingers to his neck and felt his arrhythmic pulse beneath his skin, which was blotchy—flushed red in some places, deathly pale in others. The skin at his neck was dry and hot to the touch, but his hands were icy. She pointed at his saturated mask wrapped around his leg. “What happened there?”

“He got stabbed,” Stone said curtly. “After he was injected.”

“How long?” she demanded.

“He was dosed about fifteen minutes ago. A needle and a full syringe. He got all of it.”

She cursed. “I _knew_ this would happen. Anything in his stomach?”

“Not anymore.”

“Good.” She unzipped her bag, dug out some benzodiazepine pills. “This’ll take effect faster.”

“What’s that?” Stone asked sharply.

“It’ll calm him down, decrease the hyperthermia.” She ripped open the packet. “Get him water.”

Stone’s voice rose. “I asked what that is.”

She tried to answer, but Matt had flinched away from the louder voice, face twisting as his meditative stance broke. He pushed himself backwards, crashed into a low coffee table, and immediately drove his elbow into the wood like he was under attack. Stone grabbed his arms, calling him an idiot, but before Claire could intervene, Stone grabbed Matt’s hand to press it against his chest. “Hear me?” he hissed.

Matt gulped deep breaths. “I hear you.”

“Then calm down. Claire’s here.”

“She’s okay?” His eyes flicked around, but they never landed anywhere near her. There was a streak of fresh blood on the floor from his leg.

“Let me worry about her,” Stone insisted. “Calm down and keep yourself alive.”

Matt shook his head, but the motion was weak. He took a longer, deeper, shakier breath and closed his eyes.

Stone waited a second longer, but when Matt didn’t freak out again, he got up and disappeared into the kitchen without a word.

“Don’t forget the water,” Claire ordered, keeping her voice even for Matt’s sake. “And get me some damp washcloths while you’re at it.” Without waiting for Stone’s answer, she approached her patient slowly, careful not to spook him. The benzos would still take anywhere from half an hour to an hour to kick in, and outside of a hospital, she couldn’t be sure how much time Matt actually had. “Hey,” she said softly, touching his foot and tracing her hand up his blood-slicked leg. “It’s just me.”

His hands clenched at his side and a muscle ticked in his jaw, but he didn’t otherwise respond.

She pulled out a stolen bottle of Andexanet. The hospital had stocked up once some doctors discovered that the person behind devil’s hell had selected Apixaben as its anticoagulant of choice, and Andexanet was the best at reversing the effects of that specific anticoagulant. Andexanet worked wonders and it worked fast, but you needed constant infusion because its effects reversed within an hour.

Stone was back with a glass of water and damp washcloths.

“Tourniquet,” she said crisply. “You know how to use one?”

In answer, he grabbed a thin blanket from the bed, twisting it around Matt’s leg with a knife for leverage. The knife already had blood on it. Later she might have time to appreciate the irony.

For now, she slipped her hand behind Matt’s neck, rubbing upwards against the shorter hairs there, which usually got his attention. Sure enough, his eyes opened. “Claire?” he slurred.

“Hey,” she whispered. “I need you to swallow something.”

He grimaced, perhaps at her or perhaps at the effects of the drug, but he opened his mouth long enough for her to place the benzodiazepine pills on his tongue and give him the water. He swallowed quickly.

She breathed out a sigh of relief. That would calm his heartrate, both slowing the blood flow and alleviating the worst effects of the drug, assuming she wasn’t too late—and she refused to think about that, focusing instead on the next problem: the bleeding, which might slow as his pulse decelerated but wouldn’t stop until she could reverse the anticoagulant. She donned gloves, pulled an IV catheter from her bag, hooked it to the Andexanet, and tried to roll his sleeve back.

Matt flailed away. Stone pinned his arm to his side, but Matt was straining enough that a vein stuck out prominently in his arm. Nice. Claire slipped the IV into it.

“That won’t stay,” Stone spat. “Not unless he actually can meditate through all of this, and I don’t think even Stick could’ve managed that.”

“Just hold him down,” Claire growled, “and give me that cloth. We need to lower his temperature.” While Stone tightened his grip on Matt’s arm, she touched the first damp washcloth gently to his forehead.

 

Matt

Everything was so loud and he _couldn’t see_.

He breathed in and out through his nose, trying to distract himself by tracing the sources of pain. His leg, that was a big one. There was a pricking sensation in his arm, too, and something cool was slipping into his bloodstream, but it was accompanied by Claire’s scent. He could only hope her presence was real and not somehow part of the nightmare, but he’d rather believe she was real, which meant he could trust whatever she’d injected him with.

He clung to that line of reasoning even though half of his brain was shrieking that she was filling his veins with poison on purpose.

Then something cold and wet slapped across his forehead, wrapped itself around his neck, and started constricting. Matt tore free of it, and whatever was in his arm ripped out, and his ears rang with Spanish cursing. He sensed hands grabbing for him and struck out, heard a low growl in response, and then strong hands pushed Matt flat onto his back. Stronger than Matt. Who, Peter? Did he just hit Peter?

“I’m sorry,” Matt gasped. “Peter—”

“Shut up and _think_ ,” Stone barked at him, and it was so _loud_ but Matt couldn’t worm away. Claire stuck something in his arm again and maybe the first time it hadn’t been poison, but this time it definitely was. Matt bucked, but Stone hadn’t been poisoned and Matt couldn’t throw him off.

“Matty, Matty, Matty,” Stone was saying, but he sounded like Stick.

Suddenly Matt was ten years old again. He was ten years old and he could see? He saw something he’d never seen before: his dad stretched out in an alleyway, painted in scarlet blood that pulsed a deeper red and purple in the flashing police lights. And when Matt reached out, he felt all the things he’d felt back then. Felt the cold, felt the stickiness of the blood.

Then his dad sat up, and Matt had half a second to thank God before the face morphed into something else that he’d never seen before. Kyle Conway, a bloody smile drawn on his chest.

Matt scrambled away in revulsion, and tripped over Ella. She was crouched at the edge of a skyscraper, the sun shining down on her, wind whipping at her yellow dress.

“Do you think he’ll catch me?” she shouted over the wind, one hand playing nervously with a curly strand of black hair.

Micah was down below, far below, but handcuffs secured his wrists behind his back.

“Ella,” Matt gasped. “Don’t—”

She tilted off the edge and he lunged to catch her, hearing a pained yelp and bilingual swearing in Spanish and Italian. Cold hands grabbed at him, trying to stop him from getting to Ella, so he lashed out, but it was too late. Ella was broken and the sidewalk was red and Micah was crying silently.

A hand cupped Matt’s jaw and he would’ve broken free in an instant if he didn’t catch the smell of pomegranate. “Claire?” He forced the word from his parched mouth. “She fell!”

“Shh, I’m here. You’re okay.”

Was this real, or just part of the nightmare? He blinked, but the other images had been replaced with blackness and he couldn’t get the _red_ out of his mind. “Claire, I can’t—I can’t—”

“Shh.”

If he focused, he could hear her breathing, could try to match his breathing to hers. “Tell me what to do,” he whispered. She always knew how to solve things, she always knew what he should be doing better. She could tell him how to make it stop.

“Just keep doing what you’re doing, Matt. You’re listening to me, right? That’s exactly right. You’re doing so good.” She took his hand, held it against her chest so he could feel her heart thumping steadily. Fast, but steadily. “Just stay with us.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m trying…” But something crashed somewhere—a door, a broken vase, he didn’t even know—and it was enough to shatter his concentration. Everything came rushing in, all the sounds and smells, and he screamed before he could stop himself.

“No, c’mon, you _had_ it.” Claire had both her hands on his shoulders, keeping her face right in front of his. “You can fight this, Matt, _c’mon_.”

He tried, he really did. But Claire morphed into Karen and that was wonderful, that was blissful. Until he heard it: heard her heart stop beating. Karen crumpled forward, cold and limp, and when he turned her over, his hands were streaked with blood. There was a knife in her heart. It was Conway’s knife, and his own hand was stuck to it.

He fell apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent a ridiculous amount of time googling anticoagulants and how to reverse them and still probably got it wrong. #writerlife
> 
> Also, shoutout to DDLover for suggesting Karen use her connection to Ellison! You guys have the most genius comments.


	18. Surrender To Your Kindness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1: Warning: um, sadness? I, stupidly, did not foresee how sad this story would be. But I promise there are ridiculous amounts of sappy fluff incoming. And no cliffhanger this time, not really! *hands you all chocolate*
> 
> 2: Pretty sure you can't make (good) pasta that fast, but, idk, Italians are magical creatures.
> 
> 3: Your comments are life. Dear readers, I can't thank you enough.

Foggy

Foggy realized that it would be a long time before he stopped panicking whenever Brett called, because giving Foggy a heads up that Matt had finally been arrested for being Daredevil was exactly the kind of thing Brett would do, even if Brett had been the one to arrest him.

“Hello?” Foggy asked with enough fake calm to feel proud of it.

“Just calling to let you know you might wanna come pick up your client.”

“Uh, sure. But…which one?” If Jake Boucher’s girlfriend had actually bailed him out, it was more than the guy deserved.

“Spiderman.”

 _What._ “Excuse me?” Foggy asked, striving for professional and sounding more like a high school boy whose crush said she liked him.

“Tower decided not to prosecute,” Brett explained. “Says he wants to focus on the case against Vanessa, but between you and me, I think it has more to do with the reporter from the Bulletin calling with questions.” Then his voice hardened. “Well, that and my deposition.”

“Your…what?”

“Deposition,” Brett repeated. “Right, you weren’t there, but your girlfriend and your partner—”

“Fiancée,” he corrected automatically, “and they did _what_ , now?”

“You…don’t know,” Brett said slowly.

“They _deposed_ you?”

Brett let out a shocked laugh, then a mild curse, then a laugh again, and then he hung up.

“Brett!” Foggy tried to call him back but the jerk didn’t answer. Probably off in a corner laughing about how Foggy’s two best friends went behind his back like that. Ugh. The thing about being a lawyer, though, was that sometimes you had to take care of your client first and salvage your dignity later. So he tried calling Matt (both phones, no answer, no surprise) and then stole Marci’s car to book it to the precinct.

 

Peter was oddly subdued. Well, Foggy hadn’t exactly met him in all his Spiderman glory yet so he couldn't say for sure how out-of-character it was. But as Foggy led him out of the precinct, dressed in borrowed clothes and bundled up in Foggy’s oversized jacket, Peter looked so achingly exhausted that it felt unfair.

“Can I use your phone?”

“Only if you’re calling your aunt.” Peter had still refused to use the phones at the precinct, just in case someone traced it or something.

Peter shook his head. “Text. I don’t wanna wake her up.”

That seemed like a stupid display of self-denial, but Foggy was used enough to Matt that he didn’t question it; he just handed the phone over.

“Where’s Matt?” Peter asked, eyes on the screen.

“Out beating somebody up, probably.”

Peter nodded and handed the phone back. “I put my address in Google maps.” He got into the passenger side of Marci’s car without another word, and remained silent while Foggy slipped into the driver’s seat. About a minute later, however, he spoke again because Foggy was learning that Peter Parker was allergic to silence. “I’ve known him for like three weeks and I don’t know what I’d be doing without him.”

“Why, because of the training?” Foggy asked.

Peter shot him an incredulous look. “I mean, I guess.”

“Like…” Foggy mimed a one-two punch that was probably using incorrect form, then rolled his eyes at himself and started driving. “Self-defense. Or…whatever you guys do.”

“Oh. Yeah. That.” Peter leaned his head against the window. “But he’s also really good at talking.”

That was news. Were…were they talking about the same person?

“Or…not talking. But, like, if I need to talk.”

Okay, that made sense. “He’s a good listener,” Foggy agreed, turning the windshield wipers on as it started to rain. “It’s kind of his job.”

But Peter looked frustrated. “Not just listening, either.” His eyes narrowed like he was searching for words.

“You don’t have to explain it,” Foggy said. Peter should be focusing on getting back to his life, not stressing over how to articulate something Foggy most likely knew anyway. “He’s my best friend. I get it.”

“No offense, but you probably don’t.”

Foggy raised his eyebrows. “Why not?”

“Because you’re…” He shrugged. “You’re not like us. You’re like Ned. But Matt’s like…” He trailed off.

“Like what?”

“I was too late,” Peter blurted out suddenly.

Foggy stopped at a light and turned to look at him, and immediately felt like a trap door had been cracked open with a whole world behind it. A scary world. Because there was something in Peter’s eyes that didn’t belong in the eyes of any sixteen-year-old. “What are you talking about?”

Peter swallowed. “Devil’s hell. There was…these kids got ahold of it, I guess, and one of them…I heard it, but I was too late.”

Too late. Cold washed over Foggy. When Foggy was too late, it just meant he pissed off some other attorney, or, if it was a really bad day, maybe a judge. This was a little something else.

“And I didn’t know where else to go because my aunt would just freak out and Ned would…” Peter blinked. “He doesn’t need to know about this stuff.”

 _Peter_ didn’t need to know about that stuff.

“So I went to Matt’s place and he made me food and told me his name and…and, yeah, I guess he listened. But it was more just the fact that he was…he was _there_ , you know?”

Foggy nodded, even though he didn’t know. Not really.

Peter glanced away. “He let me stay with him the whole night. Did you know he has silk sheets?”

“Yeah,” Foggy said, strangled.

“The light’s green,” Peter told him.

Foggy wished he could hug him; he settled for driving towards the place where, apparently, someone else would.

 

Stone

The nurse wouldn’t leave. Matty had passed out at around three in the morning, curled in on himself as if that could hide him from whatever was haunting him. She insisted it was thanks to the pills she’d forced into him. Stone wasn’t convinced that his body hadn’t simply given out.

Anyway, once the nurse was confident that Matty was stabilizing, she’d tried to look at Stone’s broken nose. He’d refused her the chance, so she’d retaliated by going into his kitchen and helping herself to tea and toast with peanut butter. Returning to the living room, she’d toed off her shoes and kicked them into the corner and slouched on the edge of the bed like she owned the place. But she’d saved Matty’s life, so Stone couldn’t protest.

“I told him to stay away from all this,” she said exhaustedly around a mouthful of toast. “Thought _maybe_ he might’ve listened, for once.”

She was getting small crumbs all over the thin sheet. Stone leaned against the doorway to the kitchen. “He did.”

Her brown eyes glanced over to him. “How do you figure?”

Stone should never had said anything; he owed this stranger no explanation. “He wasn’t hunting the drugs. He stopped that once the police arrested the spider-kid.”

“Huh,” she said, then took a careful bite of toast and chewed slowly, watching him. Stone was not used to anyone looking at him so intently. “How much do you know about…him? How he does what he does?”

Stone raised his eyebrows. “How much do you?”

Her lips curved upwards. “I learned within an hour of meeting him that he was a blind man who got himself beat half to death by stopping bad men from hurting others.”

Fine. They could trade scraps. “I learned about his senses before I ever met him.” At her questioning look, he risked elaboration. “I was taught the same way.”

Her heartrate sped up. “So you can, what, hear heartbeats too?”

He smirked. “You might want to calm yours down.”

“ _Mierda_ ,” she muttered.

“Spanish?” he asked.

She ignored this. “My point is that he shouldn’t have been anywhere near the drug even if he wasn’t hunting it. With his senses, he should’ve smelled it and stayed away.”

Stone could only assume that the scent of devil’s hell had, in fact, been exactly what had drawn Matty to the scene…because if it came down to it, of course Matty would rather take the drug than leave Stone to fend for himself. “Yes,” Stone said. “He should have.”

She swallowed the last of the tea and finished off the toast, then got up to replace the cool cloths on Matty’s forehead, eliciting a confused sound but not waking him up. “Well.” She kept her eyes on Matty, “I’m glad you were with him. If he’d been on his own when this happened…”

If he’d stayed the hell away from Stone, he wouldn’t have gotten injected at all.

She glanced over her shoulder at Stone again. “So, what, you’re like him?”

“No.”

“Really.” She stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “But you have the same…sensing thing.”

Well, no. The same training, yes, but Matty’s capabilities still stretched far beyond Stone’s, although he wasn’t inclined to share that information. “That’s the extent of our commonalities.”

“What were you doing in Hell’s Kitchen?”

“Have I given you any reason to expect me to answer your questions?”

She smirked and sat down on the floor, but the tenderness in the way she stroked Matty’s hair back from his forehead did not match the dry amusement of her expression. “No, but I’m not sure anyone else has given you a proper shovel talk yet, so…”

“Shovel talk,” he repeated blankly.

“You know, telling you that I’ll kill you if you hurt him.” Her eyes dropped back down to Matty. “Stab him, break his heart, let someone else hurt him on your watch. Any way of hurting him, really. I’m not picky.”

Break his heart?

“Because I will,” she promised, still looking at Matty.

“Didn’t you swear some kind of oath if you’re a…what, a doctor?” She certainly smelled like the hospital, though there was a hint of sweeter pomegranate beneath it, and bitter coffee.

“Trust me, there are plenty of ways I could hurt you without violating my oath.”

He believed her without question.

Her eyes met his again. “That being said, thank you. For calling me. And thank you for getting him here safely. He’s an idiot, but he’s my friend, you know? I should probably pick friends who don’t give me heart attacks every other month, but…” She gestured resignedly. “Here we are.”

Friend. So Matty had a business partner and a lover and a mother, and which made sense because those were all clearly-defined rolls, but this? A friend? “Is it really friendship if all you do is save his life?” That sounded more like a strange, one-sided alliance.

Her jaw tightened dangerously. “First, he saved my life too. Second…maybe we don’t meet up for coffee every week, but I believe in what he’s doing and he believes in what I’m doing.” Then she shrugged. “Besides, I like his stupid jokes.”

Stone tried to remember if he’d ever heard Matty make a joke. “Still doesn’t seem like a basis for a friendship.”

Her eyes flashed. “Good thing neither of us ever asked for you to approve.”

True. Stone lapsed into silence, and she joined him, and they stayed that way until her phone emitted a series of musical notes in some kind of alarm. Swearing in Spanish again, she jumped to her feet. “I’ve gotta go.”

And, what, leave him alone with Matty? “Why?”

“I’m late, I’m really late.” She nudged Matty’s limp leg with her toe. “Can’t believe you, Matt. Seriously.” But she ducked back down and pressed her lips to his forehead, lingering too long for the gesture to be careless. Then she was tucking her hair behind her ears and throwing her equipment into her bag and tugging her shoes back on, firing off directions. “Keep an eye on him and use his phone to call me if anything seems off. Check his breathing and heartrate and make sure he stays cool, and keep the IV in if you can. Leave it with him and I’ll get it later.” She tugged on her shoes and opened the door. “Thanks for the toast.” But she stopped halfway across the threshold. “What’s your name, again?”

He faltered. With Matty unconscious behind him and this kind woman in front of him, the name Stick had given him felt out of place. _Stone_ would not have gone so far to help Matty and _Stone_ had no reason to appreciate the nurse’s kindness.

She rolled her eyes dramatically. “All right, I’ll call you Joe.”

“I’m—I’m Italian, actually.”

“ _De verdad_ ,” she murmured. “What, like Mario or something?”

Ah, no, that was terrible. But before he could figure out what to say instead, the nurse was out the door and down the hall with the practiced speed of someone used to urgency.

Claire. They called her Claire.

Stone let out a slow breath. Impulsively, he opened a window to clear her scent from the room. Which wouldn’t work for hours yet, not with his training, but at least the scent would be lighter. Besides, the smell of drying blood wasn’t exactly pleasant.

Stone closed his eyes for a moment, resigning himself to nightmare-laden sleep for the next few days until the smell of blood was gone.

“Thanks, Matty,” he muttered, as if Matty hadn’t been injected because he was trying to help Stone and as if he hadn’t been stabbed _by_ Stone. Although, to be fair, the stabbing had at least gotten him to move off that worthless fire escape.

Suppressing a yawn, Stone crossed the room to the bed, but no sooner had he sat down then Matty’s ancient brick of a phone started vibrating on the floor (yet again). Stone snatched it up, couldn’t make sense of the caller ID system that was used by someone who couldn’t see it anyway, so he answered in case it was Claire calling with more instructions.

“I don’t care about your Daredeviling, you’ve gotta get to the precinct,” the other lawyer was saying. “They released Peter!”

Grimacing, Stone hung up. Claire, the lawyer, the teenager. Miss Page and the little girl. A mother. Matty had so many people. He might complain that he’d only gotten a year with Stick, but what did it matter? It was, in fact, possible that he had so many people now _because_ he’d only gotten a year with Stick.

Stone would make that trade in a heartbeat.

Instead, he sat alone on the bed, keeping an eye on Matty as instructed. Matty was pale enough that he might as well have died hours ago, and once in a while he would twitch where he lay—usually into a tighter ball, but occasionally in an aggressive motion—or make pained sounds that Stone knew without a doubt he would never allow himself to make in Stone’s presence if he could help it. Stone was not sympathetic. Rather, he felt his chest tighten with something identifiable as jealousy each time the phone buzzed (which it did four more times). He didn’t answer again. If Claire had something to say, she knew where to find them.

 

It was past dawn and there was an ache deep in the back of Stone’s skull from lack of sleep when Matty finally stirred. His sightless eyes opened blearily and he licked his lips like a snake tasting the air. Then he pushed himself back onto his elbows, head tilting different directions as he pieced his world back together again.

Stone should do something. Get him water at the absolute least. But as uncomfortable as it was to watch him, it felt like what Stone deserved.

Slowly, painfully, Matt rolled onto his stomach, which shifted the knife tied to the tourniquet. He sucked in a breath as if the blade had cut him and, before Stone could stop him, pulled the knife free and threw it clumsily aside. It bounced off the wall. Fortunately for him, he didn’t seem to have noticed the IV still stuck in his arm. Instead, he pushed himself up onto his knees, one hand braced on the floor with the heel of his other pressing against his forehead. Stone doubted that would have any effect at staving off his headache, which at least was something they had in common. Matty needed painkillers for that, and for painkillers he needed food and water. Stone did not imagine that getting him to ingest any of it would go smoothly, so still, he waited.

Swallowing roughly, Matty shifted upright, balancing with apparent difficulty on solely his knees, eyes flitting around the room. If he’d noticed Stone, he made no indication. His entire body was tense, muscles visibly clenched like steel rope beneath his black shirt. Then his right hand moved slowly, like he was trying to be subtle as he reached for…something. Head tilted to the left, he kept moving to the right. There wasn’t much on the floor for him to find, but his hand passed over two books stacked together and a bag of once-frozen peas that Stone had used to bring down swelling at some point and then forgotten about.

But there was also another knife, and when Matty’s fingers found the handle, Stone shot to his feet. “No, no, that’s not yours.”

Matty’s eyes flared wide with panic and he slashed upwards. It was a surprisingly skillful strike, given his state, but Stone was the one who’d taught him so he had no trouble disarming him.

Deprived of the weapon, Matty swung with a fist instead. Stone blocked it and wrapped his fingers around the offending wrist. “It’s me,” he hissed. “Stop fighting and think.” Matty’s other hand clawed at Stone and inspiration struck at the memory of how Claire had dealt with him. Stone grabbed the open hand and pressed it to his chest. “Feel that? It’s me.”

Matty’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “Stone?”

“It’s me.” With no real explanation for what he was doing, Stone next brought Matty’s hand up to hold against his face. It didn’t make sense; it wasn’t as if Matty knew what his face felt like. But it must be working, because the terror in his eyes slowly faded.

“Stone.”

“It’s me. You’re safe.”

“Where’s—”

“My apartment. Calm down.”

“Where’s Karen?”

Ah. “She’s not here. Whatever you think happened to her didn’t. You were drugged.”

He blinked rapidly, obviously overwhelmed and trying not to show it. “…What?”

“Just get some sleep or something.” Stone stood up. There had to be something useful he could be doing.

Matty’s hand ghosted over his bloody arm. “What happened?”

In what was by now a practiced motion, Stone forced the hand back to Matty’s side. “Leave it alone. You don’t appreciate IVs. I suppose it’s a good thing you wear suits as a lawyer, as the scarring won’t fit with your professional persona. My apologies, but you were the one who wouldn’t stop throwing a tantrum about it.”

His eyes fluttered closed and he bit his lip. “I don’t remember.”

Well, his questions about Karen suggested that he did in fact remember something—not about anything that had actually happened to him, clearly, but about whatever he’d experienced from the hallucinations. “What do you remember?”

Shaking his head, he pulled his knees to his chest. He seemed to be trying to compress himself into a ball again, to somehow shield himself. It made no difference because Stone could smell his tears, hear the hushed sounds as he tried not to cry. Still, Stone decided to do them both a favor and retreat into the kitchen. They both needed a meal, and pasta tasted like home. He started some water boiling, which reminded him that Matty needed to rehydrate, so although Stone didn’t particularly want to return to the living room, he did just that and set a bottle of water on the hardwood floor beside Matty.

His face was tearstained and he kept it angled towards the floor. Interesting how he had no problem letting Stone stitch him up but refused to reveal his tears. Stone wondered if that was more of a reflection of Stick’s training or of Matty’s own personality. Then he wondered why he cared.

Matty drained the half the bottle before speaking, but his voice was still rough. “What happened?”

“Are you just going to forget again?”

He ran his finger up the glass, catching a bead of condensation. “No.”

Of course he’d say that now; he’d say anything to get information short of begging Stone for it. “Didn’t your nurse friend tell you how long the memory loss lasts?”

His eyebrows tightened. “Claire?” His head tilted, nostrils flaring slightly. “She was here.”

“She’s too good for you,” Stone informed him.

To his surprise, Matty laughed, then coughed, but he was grinning. “Yeah, everyone knows that.” The grin slipped away. “What happened, Stone? How did I…get like this?”

“How do you think? You went out on the streets and got drugged.”

Matty started frowning. “Was someone under attack?”

“I was handling it,” Stone said icily.

His lips parted like he thought he was figuring something out. “I found you?”

“I was _handling_ it, I was _fine_ , but you just had to get involved! You threw yourself into it and look what resulted.”

Now Matty looked bewildered. “But I…wasn’t I helping you?”

“No!” Stone stood up, suddenly furious with Matty’s startled, vulnerable, naïve, tearstained face. “I don’t know _what_ you were doing. Trying to be a hero, I suppose. _Daredevil_ ,” he spat, then waved a disgusted hand at him, huddled there on the floor like that. “None of this would’ve happened had you just left me alone.”

Matty’s hand started picking at the hardwood floor. “I wasn’t helping?”

The water in the kitchen was boiling over. Stone stalked towards the kitchen, tossing “I’m making pasta” over his shoulder.

It should not be possible for a grown man to look wounded upon hearing those particular words, but Matty managed it.

Gritting his teeth, Stone focused on the pasta, but he kept one ear on the living room in case Matty tried to slip out the window. Stone should’ve shut the window. He made plenty of pasta and added meatballs (there were three left in the bag and Matty needed protein), and he threw it all into a giant bowl, motivated by the knowledge that the gesture would both upset Matty and comfort him at the same time.

Setting the bowl on the floor beside the water bottle, Stone sat down on the floor by the bed with his back to the thin frame.

Matty, the imbecile, was fingering the IV stuck in his arm. “What is this?”

“Anticoagulant reversal,” Stone answered curtly. “Leave it in or you’ll bleed out.”

He traced along the tubing until he encountered the bottle. “How long do I have to use this?”

Translation: _when can I leave?_

“Just keep the bottle with you until it runs out.”

Translation: _leave now. I won’t stop you._

Matty wet his lips, not like his mouth was dry but in nervousness. “Why’d you help me, Stone?”

Stone shrugged.

“You should’ve dragged me to a hospital,” he said quietly, almost gently. “Or just left me on the street.”

Stone scowled. “Haven’t we been through this? I told you when we were wandering in those tunnels—”

“But you’re the one who’s always talking about choosing the right allies and finishing what Stick started with me.” He tilted his head. “Why, Stone? Why come back to Hell’s Kitchen at all? It’s not like we’ll ever agree on what we’re doing here, it’s not like I’ll ever—”

Stone cut him off with a growl. “What is your problem?”

“Just tell me,” he said softly.

“What do you want me to say?” Stone stood up, though he had nowhere to go. “That I couldn’t help choosing you? That’s what you think, isn’t it? Or would you rather I say that it wouldn’t even matter, because I’d choose you anyway on my own?”

Matty froze, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.

“Because you’re…” Stone slumped back to the floor. “You’re not like Stick.” He stared down at the rough wood and forced the words out, partly because Matty deserved to hear them but mostly because Stone needed to say them aloud. “And I wish I weren’t.”

 

Karen

She'd been so excited by Ellison's cooperation that it was after three in the morning when she'd finally fallen asleep, but less than ten minutes later she jolted awake to a phone call and Matt's subdued voice asking if she could come get him, please. When she’d collected him from Stone’s apartment, he was wearing one of Stone’s jackets and a weary expression. She loaded him into her car where he barely spoke but never moved his hand away from her arm and, once they reached his building, she cursed the ridiculous number of stairs it took to get to the top floor because the elevator hadn’t been working for two months. He leaned on her so heavily that she knew he couldn’t be aware of it.

Unlocking the door to 6A, she held it open while blocking Frank with her in case lest the over-enthused puppy knocked Matt off balance. Dripping from the rain, he had to lean against the wall inside to stay upright while he lowered his hand enough for Frank to lick it. The puppy gave a low, unhappy whine.

“Really,” he murmured to her. “I still think it smells pretty good.”

“Food?” Karen suggested, watching him move gingerly down the hall.

“Stone made me something.”

Yeah, she’d seen the half-eaten bowl of pasta. Hadn’t realized Matt was the one who’d actually eaten it. “Shower, then?”

He was quiet for a moment, standing in the middle of his apartment and apparently debating the merits of collapsing into bed against leaving the sheets smelling of blood and sweat and devil’s hell.

Slowly, Karen drew closer. She wanted nothing more than to hold him, but she’d seen Stone’s bruises, his broken nose. Matt might still be dangerous, at least until he was…himself. “Can I—”

“No, please.” There was a flash of something she couldn’t read in his eyes before he closed them.

“You won’t hurt me,” she said, even though she had no proof of that right now. “Let me help you.”

He backed up against the kitchen counter. “Karen, I swear, if you touch me right now…”

She froze, letting the hand that had started to reach for him drop to her side. “What is it?”

His head lowered. “I don’t want to...” He aimed a false, uncomfortable grin at the floor. “I don’t want to, um, cry.”

Something painful throbbed in her chest. How could she convince him to let her see his tears? “Matt, it’s okay. Don’t you know how brave I think you are? How brave and strong and _good?_ ”

“No, that’s not…” He breathed in shakily and breathed out something far more vulnerable. “I’m so _tired_ of crying.”

Oh. She wanted to reach for him, kiss away the sadness or just hold him. But she was all too familiar with what he was talking about. Coupled with any lingering effects of the drug, he probably just needed to sleep. “Silk sheets are waiting.”

“Thanks.” He took three steps towards the bedroom and stopped. “Uh, but…”

“What can I do?”

He averted his gaze. “There’s no point in pretending tonight won’t be…bad.”

The nightmares.

“And, obviously, I need to sleep. So it’s…it’s pretty much inevitable.” He let out an exhausted, frustrated exhale. “And I know this is really shitty after everything you’ve done for me tonight, but—”

“You’d rather I go?”

He closed his eyes. “Could you?”

Could she leave him alone like this? Even if she _should_ , she didn’t think she could. “Matt…”

“Please.”

She searched his face. “Could you just…let yourself be selfish for a second? If having me here will be harder for you, I’ll go. I will. But if not…or if you want me to call Foggy, or your mom…”

He just shook his head.

“Please don’t be alone, Matt. Not right now.”

“I have Frank.”

And, yes, the dog hadn’t left his side since he’d gotten back, but…she pushed her wet hair behind her ears. “Did Claire say you could be alone?”

“She left me with Stone. So.”

Maybe he thought that was the same thing as being alone, but Karen remembered Stone’s broken nose and the bowl of pasta.

“Karen.” His voice hardened slightly and she cringed at the thought of what that effort must be costing him. “You want me to be selfish, so let me be blunt. Tonight will be bad enough without worrying about how you're handling it.”

Handling  _him_. Her eyes were stinging and suddenly her immediate priority was leaving before he could realize he’d made her—that she was crying. “Right. Right. I trust you.” Lie, lie, lie. She all but fled out the door before he could say anything else, down the endless stairs until she could take refuge in her car. Locking all the doors, she made sure her phone volume was on high so she could hear it over the rain and pulled her knees to her chest, letting her jeans absorb her tears.

He wouldn’t change his mind, she was certain. But _just in case_ he did, she wasn’t going anywhere.


	19. I Don't Need to Keep Hiding

Matt

He jolted awake, heart pounding from an already-forgotten nightmare, wincing at the sound of Frank barking. Incessantly.

“Stop,” he said.

She did not.

“Please stop.”

If anything, she got louder. Like she was doing it deliberately, which was ridiculous. She was just a stupid dog, so why couldn’t she _shut up_.

He felt a flash of anger without warning. He was out of bed a second later, and he was slamming the door to the roof shut behind him before Frank could catch up. Inhaling through his nose, he tried to slow his breathing back down.

He was fine.

This was normal.

And despite how he’d felt in the moment, he hadn’t hit her. Because that would be…Matt backed up against the door and slid down it to the ground, barely feeling the cold of the roof seeping through his pajama pants. Interlocking his hands behind his neck, he counted his breaths.

Couldn’t calm down, although that wasn’t Frank’s fault. His own anger scared him far more than her barking had aggravated him.

The mind controlled the body and that was where emotions came from: the body, a chemical cocktail in his brain. Therefore, controllable.

Except that none of the usual tricks were working. He couldn’t go off Daredeviling—aside from the fact that it was day, punching people wouldn’t _exactly_ help with the, um, anger issues. Meditation was also pointless; he knew from last night that he could barely last five minutes before his brain started reliving the nightmares from devil’s hell, and he doubted it’d be any easier now that he had even more recent material to work with. Prayer was the only other thing he could think of, but how would that go?

_Hi, God, it’s me again. I’m sorry for not doing half the things You want me to be doing but please ignore that and just help me right now because I’m still so scared I can’t stand it._

Yeah, no.

He could always…try talking. But Stone, Claire, and Karen had already had to put up with him enough, and he’d intruded on Foggy enough last time, so it definitely seemed unfair to bother any of them with this. Which left Maggie, whom he certainly trusted but who would also be _concerned_ , and his therapist, whom he also mostly trusted, and whose job it was to be bothered, and whom he was paying anyway.

Therapist it was.

Frank celebrated his return to the apartment like she was welcoming him back from a year-long quest and he made a point of scratching her ears while he listened to his voice messages. They were mostly from Foggy (he breathed a prayer of thanks for Peter’s release), but there was one from Claire with instructions and a strict warning to not go out tonight and two from Karen: the first from early this morning, right before when he’d asked her to pick him up (she’d worried that he was out so late, and she’d been right to worry), and the second from only an hour or so ago, checking that he was all right after he’d all but thrown her out.

The guilt that had already settled deep in his stomach intensified. She hadn’t deserved any of that. Would it really have killed him to just let her stay? What she deserved was a spectacular apology, which he certainly did not trust himself to make at the moment.

 

Dr. Richland settled herself into her seat while Matt hunched on the couch. Her hair (thick and cut short) was secured out of her face so she didn’t have to move it out of her eyes and her notebook was in her lap. She seemed a thousand times more put together than he felt. A click of her pen signaled her attentiveness.

“I’m sorry,” he started. “I know this wasn’t scheduled—”

“I’m here to help, Matt,” Dr. Richland reminded him calmly. “That’s literally my job.”

Right. His fault that she hadn’t been able to help so much recently. He’d kept rescheduling appointments because Spiderman and the case and…everything. Maybe he’d be better now if he’d actually shown up for appointments like he was supposed to.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, although he should be apologizing to Foggy and Karen and everyone else who’d had to deal with him.

“I’m just glad you’re back. Did something happen?”

He could tell her this much, couldn’t he? The context didn’t matter. “Have you heard of that drug? Devil’s hell? It, um…I got dosed. Twice.” He wet his lips. “And the first time was bad enough, but I couldn’t…I don’t think I really, uh, _recovered_ before…the second time.” He swallowed. “And now I just…I can’t.”

“Can’t what?” she asked neutrally. Her heartbeat was a steady metronome, which should have been a relief. He didn’t have to worry about upsetting her. But at the same time…he’d seen Conway’s blood so clearly in the hallucination, and he just didn’t want to listen to heartbeats anymore.

His throat tightened. “I just can’t.”

“Are you thinking about any specific things?”

He was thinking of a thousand specific things. “Karen.”

“Your girlfriend? Does she know what happened to you?”

“She helped. Afterwards. Tried to, anyway.” Then he had to explain how he’d made her leave and how he had no idea how to make up for it.

“To clarify,” Richland began, “you wanted her to leave because…?”

Saying this out loud was almost physically painful. “I thought I’d hurt her if I…if I lashed out or something. From, you know.” A helpless handwave. “Sleeping.”

“She could have stayed on your couch,” Dr. Richland pointed out—not accusative but prodding, like when Claire pressed on a wound to learn the extent of it.

Matt concentrated on tracing his finger against the grain of the couch. “But I wanted to be alone.”

Her voice softened. “Why?”

Strange how readily the answer came. “Because it’s what I’m used to.”

She let his words hang in her small office, and he stifled a grimace. It was such a classic technique, a way to get the person who was saying something to stop and think about what they’d admitted to, and maybe recognize, _Oh, hey, that’s my problem!_ without needing the other person to spell it out. He used it himself when clients needed to realize they were being self-destructive.

Well, he could play along. He forced the words out through gritted teeth. “All right, I get it. I have depression, and between that and my background I could never be honest in a relationship because no one should have to deal with any this, least of all Karen.” Who was basically sunlight incarnate. “I get it.”

If Dr. Richland was surprised by his confession, she didn’t show it. “You seem pretty convinced that she doesn’t think it’s worth _dealing with_ , as you say.”

Obviously.

“Have ever you asked her about that? I mean, with words,” she added, almost pointedly.

Because that would make her feel _great_. He shook his head.

Dr. Richland leaned against the armrest of her chair. “So you’ve gone ahead and decided for _her_ what she’s willing to deal with, and you’ve also decided not to double check whether you’re right.”

Matt flexed his jaw. “Seems like you don’t approve.”

“Seems like you’re not being fair to her,” she countered.

Ouch.

Dr. Richland paused before speaking again, maybe giving him the chance to respond or giving herself time to collect her thoughts or maybe signaling a change in subject. “Does she know that you’re used to being alone?”

He categorized that as a slight change in subject. “We both are, actually,” he said stiffly, “so yes.”

There was the glide of the pen over paper and he felt a stab of guilt for revealing something that Karen would’ve wanted private. There was client privilege, sure (and how odd it was to be on the other side of it), but still. “Have you talked together about how that might influence the way you still make decisions?” Dr. Richland asked. “You, specifically, or the two of you as a couple.”

“Yes, actually,” he said, a bit relieved to be able to give what felt like the right answer.

To his dismay, Dr. Richland did not seem convinced. “How did those conversations go?”

None were moments he particularly wanted to relieve. That time he’d fallen to pieces in the old office, after he thought he’d lost Foggy as a friend forever. That time in the basement when they should’ve been trading judgment and instead had traded burdens. The ring at Fogwell’s when she’d helped him figure out how to miss everything Stick should have been. He fell back on sarcasm as a cheap defense even though he knew she’d see it as such. “On a scale of one to miserable?”

She set her notepad aside. “What I’m concerned about is that you and Karen might have talked about the things that happened in your past, but I’m not getting the idea that you’ve tried to figure out, together, how your pasts affect the way you live now.”

That felt like admitting defeat. Talking about the fears that he knew, logically, came from those things felt like wallowing in his own self-pitying stupidity. And Karen, did she really need to relive all the trauma that ever had a part in shaping her into the incredible person she was today?

Dr. Richland sighed. “Somehow, I get the feeling I’m not persuading you.”

Never one to give false hope, Matt shrugged.

“Just give it a try, Matthew, and tell me how it goes, and we can work from there.” A hint of amusement slipped into her voice. “If nothing else, it will at least send Karen a message that you care about moving forward with her.”

Moving—who said anything about moving forward? Matt realized too late that his face was probably making a startled expression. “I can’t…I can’t propose yet.”

“Who said anything about proposing?”

Ah. Well. “I just mean…” He trailed off, wishing not for the first time that she’d go ahead and interrupt him so it wouldn’t be so obvious that he didn’t know what to say.

But no. She waited, as always, until he retreated helplessly into silence. “Relationships are never stagnant, that’s all I meant. I think being more honest with her now will give her the confidence to take the next step in your relationship.” A small smile slipped into her voice as if accidentally. “Whatever it may be.”

 

Foggy

The motion he was writing, objectively, made no sense. In his defense, he was responding to the opposing party’s motion, and theirs made even less sense. If he had to read about how something “was not necessarily reasonable per se” one more time, he was going to resort to writing in Punjabi.

Of course, this was one of the best possible problems to have. Certainly beat more recent problems like Matt falling through his window, freaking out from things only he could see. Except now he knew that his experience was really nothing to complain about.

How did he know that? Because _Hey, Soul Sister_ had rang out at some predawn time in the morning, and he’d answered his phone to hear Karen trying to have something that could pass for a normal conversation in the most heart-wrenching I’m-crying-but-trying-to-hide-it voice he’d ever heard.

What was possibly more heart-wrenching, however, was how immediately she’d dropped the act the second he showed an ounce of concern. It made him want to know who, exactly, could’ve cared so little about her to teach her to stifle the pain like that.

Anyway, so Foggy had ducked out of the bedroom so as not to disturb Marci and sat up with Karen for about an hour. He listened to what had happened, then tried to reassure her first by pointing out that they should really all be celebrating that Matt had accepted as much help as he had and then, more gently, by suggesting that his desire to be alone wasn’t personal (except it was). That provided a nice segue into a story from law school wherein Matt had gotten the flu and decided the only way to deal with it was by hiding out in a crappy gym he may or may not have broken into, and then deliriously tried to convince Foggy that the sickness was a mitigating factor.

“He made up a whole case on the spot that he was convinced actually existed,” Foggy had told her. “It was a brilliant case, too. So if you ever doubt his creativity…don’t.”

Karen did one of those hushed, gasping giggles of someone who was still crying. Still hurt.

Because it did hurt, knowing Matt was alone and also hurting. And it hurt in a different way, feeling like Matt didn’t trust them to help when he was hurting. But those hurts, Foggy realized a long time ago, came with the territory of being Matt’s best friend. It was unequivocally worth it.

Now Foggy was glaring at the stupid motion and yet another needless “necessarily” thrown in for no good reason, wondering if this would make more sense if he’d gotten more sleep. But his door was slightly cracked, enough that he could hear Matt’s tired footsteps approaching Karen’s desk.

“Hey—hey—Karen?”

Foggy stopped paying attention with the stupid motion.

“Yes, Matt?” She sounded guarded. It was painful just to hear. “Are you…feeling better?”

“Yeah, fine, I’m fine. I’m…” Hesitation. He lowered his voice. “I’m sorry about last night.”

There was a thin, jangling sound from Karen’s bracelet like she was twisting her hands together, or maybe pushing her hair out of her face. “No, don’t worry about it. You went through a lot, I understand.”

There was a moment of silence, long enough for Foggy to realize that trying to undercut Matt’s apologies like that was probably not helpful.

Sure enough, there was a hint of frustration in Matt’s voice when he spoke again. “I should have let you stay.”

“No, I understand,” Karen insisted. “I shouldn’t have pushed.”

Just accept the apology, Karen.

“Can we do something tomorrow?” Matt asked. “Together?”

Oh, hey. Nice. Foggy nodded approvingly to himself.

“Like a date?” Karen asked.

“Exactly like a date. It’s…it’s been a while.”

Aww. Ten out of ten, Matt. Before Karen could answer, however, Foggy’s phone _dinged_ , telling him of an incoming text. In fact, Karen’s answer was cut off by her cute little bell ringtone, meaning she also had a text. Most surprising of all was the louder, insistent buzzing that somehow sounded almost angry.

Matt’s burner.

Foggy hurried out of his office to join the others, holding his phone. “Brett says they arrested Vanessa,” he announced—needlessly, judging by the way Karen was staring at her own phone.

Matt had turned aside, listening with pinched brows to whatever Brett was saying. “Thank you,” he said, voice slipping into a register halfway between his normal tone and Daredevil’s growl. He put the burner phone back in his pocket. “Vanessa’s been arrested.”

“We already know that,” Foggy said, sounding childish to his own ears, but the reality of the situation was collapsing on him. “Don’t understand why you get a phone call and we get texts and why do you even _have_ your burner phone, when do you ever charge it?”

Both hands on his hips, Matt started worrying away at his lower lip. He opened his mouth, then closed it.

Didn’t matter. They were all thinking the same thing. Foggy reached for optimism. “I mean…Fisk might not think it’s our fault.”

Matt’s jaw clenched and he mouth the word _our_.

“Vanessa was doing illegal stuff all on her own,” Foggy rushed on. “Obviously, the police would catch up with her eventually. Doesn’t mean you broke the deal with Fisk.”

“Because Fisk always waits patiently for proof that his enemies have actually hurt him before lifting a finger against them,” Matt growled.

Yeah, and they’d known this was a risk. “Can we at least celebrate that Vanessa won’t be able to distribute any more devil’s hell?”

Matt started pacing. “She’s just one person. She can get others to keep distribution up. Brett told me they arrested two people with her, but it’s not _enough_.” He swore under his breath. “I thought they’d wait until they had more on her.”

Honestly, so had Foggy. He swallowed tightly. “Maybe we shouldn’t have undermined Tower’s case against Spiderman.”

Matt’s head snapped up, his red lenses flashing.

“At least, not so…thoroughly.”

Matt’s hands at his hips curled into fists, but he didn’t even try to argue.

“Can we—” Karen’s voice cracked.

Matt and Foggy instantly turned to her. She was standing completely still, face utterly white, eyes rounder than Foggy had ever seen, and it looked like she was barely breathing.

Matt made a soft sound and reached for her hand, but she didn’t respond, so he slid his hand up to move his arm around her shoulders, clearly going for one of those exquisitely rare Murdock-initiated hugs.

But Karen flinched away. “Can we just stop obsessing on how we got here? It doesn’t _matter_ , all right? We just need to…we need a _plan_ , we need to respond to…” The words trailed away.

Because that was the problem. They needed a response, but to what? They had no idea what Fisk would do, or when he’d do it, or how. Which was always true of Fisk, but before, his goal had always been something bigger. Any attack towards the three of them was retaliatory, usually because Matt or Karen pushed the wrong button, and secondary to his grander scheme. They always got to be the ones who started the fight, who chose when and how to go after Fisk, and if they missed their shot, well, Fisk always had other things to deal with.

Now, though. Now they were playing defense and if Matt was right about Fisk leaping to conclusions about their involvement with Vanessa’s arrest (and why wouldn’t he be? He understood Fisk almost creepily well), that meant that a hundred percent of Fisk’s attention would be squarely on them. They’d already fired the first shot; all they could do now was wait while Fisk took his.

Matt’s head was tilted intently towards Karen, and he seemed more focused on reading her than on coming up with actual words, so Foggy did what he did best and spoke. “I’ll call Brett, see if he can put extra security on Fisk. In the meantime, maybe we’re all panicking prematurely? Vanessa’s not dead or even injured, so the treaty's still intact.

Matt was already shaking his head. “The deal was around Vanessa’s freedom.”

“So let’s tie her freedom to our continued existence,” Foggy said. “Make it so any move Fisk makes against us will hurt her case.”

“ _How_ ,” Matt said flatly, as if he’d already thought of every possibility and discarded them all. It was infuriating.

“Get called as witnesses for the prosecution,” Foggy offered. “If he takes us out, it’ll make her look guilty.”

“What would we even testify to? We don’t have any—”

“We don’t have to actually testify, just go on the witness list so Fisk knows.”

Matt was scowling. “We can’t throw ourselves in his face like that.”

“Au contraire, my friend, that’s _exactly_ what we should do. Right, Karen?” He looked at her for support, and his heart dropped into his stomach. “Karen?”

Her eyes were squeezed shut. Matt touched her again, uncertainly, and her eyes blinked open, which was all it took for two tears to run down her cheeks. This time, Matt used both arms to pull her into his embrace, murmuring something Foggy couldn’t hear.

“I’m okay,” she gasped into his shoulder.

She wasn’t, and she shouldn’t be. Because Fisk had tried to kill Karen Page how many times now?

“We’ve got you.” Matt sounded as certain as he was gentle, holding her tighter. Foggy flashbacked to _I’ll keep you safe, Karen._ “You’re not on your own here. We've got you.”

 

Matt

He cocked his head at the approaching _thwip, thwip, thwip_. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to react to Peter now that Tower had decided not to prosecute. Honestly, he should apologize: apologize for letting Peter get arrested, apologize for not being there when he’d been released, apologizing for getting Peter caught up with Vanessa. The thing was, he wasn’t sure if Peter needed to dwell on that now; maybe it’d better to wait for Peter to bring it up on his own, or maybe Matt was just avoiding his problems.

Regardless, Peter beat him to any apologies as soon as he landed on the roof. “Sorry I’m late! I had to wait until my aunt was asleep to sneak out.”

He didn’t seem to think that this was alarming, but Matt was very alarmed. “I thought she agreed with Spiderman.”

“She did! Does. She does. She just also tried to ground me because of some school stuff.”

There was clearly much more to this story and Matt instantly put all immediate plans on hold until he got more facts. “What kind of school stuff?”

He ducked his head, shuffling his feet. “Uh, you know, just some grades that are lower than she’d like…”

That didn’t add up. “Peter. You’re smart. You knew the half-life of ozone off the top of your head.”

“That’s _chemistry_ ,” Peter pointed out, a bit of a whine slipping into his voice. “I actually like chemistry.”

Matt zeroed in on this fact. “So she’s not upset with your grade in chemistry?”

Peter’s heartrate shot up. “Um…she’s not thrilled with that one either. Technically.”

Not a matter of intelligence or natural ability, then. Matt folded his arms across his chest. “Why are your grades lower?”

“Super not important. I’m here now, so what’s our next—”

“Why are your grades lower?”

Finally, Peter ducked his head. “Just, um, some missed assignments. Not from when I was in jail,” he said quickly. “You took care of that for me, and _thank you_ for that, by the way. They were all due back when we were first trying to stop devil’s hell, so obviously I had to prioritize, you know, people’s actual lives.”

Oh no. Oh no. “Peter, school is part of _your_ actual life.”

“Um, is it though? I mean, I’m doing fine, I just—”

Peter kept talking but Matt stopped listening, trying to figure out how he hadn’t realized this was happening. How many assignments had Peter missed because he was training or patrolling with Matt? How had Matt not _thought_ of this? True, Peter was obviously smart, but he was still a sixteen-year-old boy with a hero complex who would have no trouble at all justifying web-slinging around New York instead of doing homework.

It hadn’t been as much of a temptation for Matt when he was Peter’s age. He’d had a clear career goal that required academic success and he’d had his dad’s voice that still sometimes managed to speak over Stick’s. And besides all that, growing up at St. Agnes quickly highlighted that he could not afford to waste opportunities to provide for his own future—he’d had no safety nets except those he’d built himself.

“Matt?”

He refocused. “Did you at least do the makeup assignments?”

“I…started them.”

Between the fact that his aunt didn’t want him out there and the fact that he was falling behind in school, and the fact that Fisk could be keeping almost as close an eye on Spiderman as on Daredevil, Matt couldn’t think of a single reason not to send Peter home right now—except that such a strategy would utterly fail.

Stifling a sigh, Matt offered a smile. “Well, now that you’re here, you might as well follow me.”

Which Peter did. Unquestioningly. It was disconcerting because while Stone might think that Matt wasn’t like Stick, Matt knew himself well enough to know better.

The closer he got to Queens, the less familiar he was with the rooftops, which only highlighted how much of his activity as Daredevil he did without really thinking, relying on muscle memory. He paused at the border, listening.

“I thought you didn’t go to Queens?” Peter asked.

“Don’t you hear that?” Matt murmured.

“Hear what?”

A fight. Not a terribly gruesome one either, by the sound of it, but there were at least four people involved. Plenty of opportunity for escalation. A decent excuse. “Over there.” Matt led the way, half of his brain sensing for the exact moment when Peter noticed the fight and half of his brain trying to figure out when (how) to talk to Peter about Fisk.

Peter noticed the fight in less than a minute, which filled Matt with pride. He also used webbing to disarm the one attacker with a knife before Matt even reached for his baton. After that, it was easy for the two of them to swing down and send the four combatants scattering.

“Nice,” Matt said sincerely.

Peter bounced a bit on his toes, energy clearly not spent. “You think?”

Matt couldn’t tell Peter about Fisk. Not now. Peter was so excited to finally be back to being Spiderman that Matt wasn’t convinced Peter wouldn’t take off for Fisk’s prison on his own. The conversation—the _warnings_ —would be better received during the day, when neither of them were wearing masks, where Peter would be forced to sit down and think about the weight of the danger.

“How close are we to your house?” Matt asked casually.

“Uh…five minutes.”

Perfect. “Do you hear anything else out there?”

There was another fight in the distance, at the edge of what Matt could hear, but it wasn’t serious and, besides, he knew with certainty that it was outside of Peter’s range. Sure enough, Peter shook his head.

Matt dropped a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “It was good to be out with you again.”

Peter stood up a little straighter. “Yeah, I missed y—it. This. Being out. But I wanna get back to training, too." The eyepieces of Peter’s suit _whirred_ into some expression that made Matt wonder if Stark had really designed a weaponized suit capable of making puppy eyes. “Can we meet earlier tomorrow?"

“Well,” Matt said, faux-thoughtfully, “between finishing your assignments and making it up to your aunt for worrying about your grades, I’m not sure you have time for training.”

“I’ll finish the assignments,” Peter said hurriedly, hopping about four feet backwards.

Matt grinned, and then the grin turned into something warmer and more sincere. He’d missed this, too. "Wait, Spiderman?" he called.

“Yeah?”

He tried to sound like the confident adult he was pretending to be. “Be careful.”


	20. Your Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends. Bit nervous about this tbh because it's such an Important Conversation that I can only hope is justified by character development. Also, fair warning, there's *SPOILER* discussion of marriage which I know can be a sensitive topic. I'm doing my best to do justice to these characters' different backgrounds and worldviews, but please tell me if anything seems off.

Matt

The air smelled like spring. He met Karen at a park after work that Friday, detouring only to collect Frank and a leash. The park had a fence, however, and dogs were allowed off-leash after four, so he let her run free while he lagged behind with Karen, folding up his cane and walking beside her in lazy circles around the perimeter. Vanessa had been indicted, but they weren’t talking about that or about Fisk. They’d carved out this time specifically to enjoy each other.

The sun was hidden by clouds, judging by the cooling temperature. Her fingers twined with his were cold and her shirt seemed too thin for the early spring weather, but she refused his jacket.

“I’m from Vermont.” She tipped her head back to breathe in. “Sometimes I like being cold. Feels like home.”

“You,” he said deliberately, “are bizarre.”

She hummed. “But you love me for it.”

He squeezed her hand tighter, relishing the thrill of being this close to her, of holding onto her, of being able to do something as simple and sweet as walk through a park on a spring day. A crisp breeze fluttered the hem of her skirt and kept blowing her hair in her face; she tried in vain to push it out of the way. He liked it, liked hearing it brush against her skin and smelling the shampoo. This was the kind of thing Stick would never have even known how to appreciate.

But Matt could appreciate it and that…that was significant. Maybe Stone was right.

“Can I ask you something?”

Every time she opened with that, he felt a weird mix of apprehension and appreciation. Apprehension because of how deep her questions were known to cut, and appreciation for this fiercely curious woman who’d somehow decided that he was worth understanding. “Whatever you want to know.”

“I found something in your bathroom, a while ago.”

“That could go a _lot_ of different directions.”

She laughed. “Okay, but they were…pills. And I swear I wasn’t snooping around, but I recognized them because, um, my mom needed them.”

Right. The antidepressants, collected unceremoniously following the advice of Dr. Richland. His neck grew warmer. “I don’t _need_ them. They’re just helpful.”

“Oh,” she said in an indecipherable tone.

He was so bad at this. “Sorry, you had a question?”

She gave a small laugh. “Well, I wanted to ask what you thought about that, but I think you kind of answered already.”

Frank ran up to him with a demanding bark, a welcome distraction, so he shuffled his cane under his arm so he could pick up the nearest stick and throw it. She knew how to play fetch, she really did, but she usually got bored with the repetition. Sure enough, she kept running right past the stick, chasing something else. “They’re helpful,” he repeated uncertainly.

“Are they, though?”

He snorted. “It’s kind of hard to tell since I don’t think I was supposed to pair them with a hallucinogenic fear drug.”

“Oh, was that not on the warning label?” She bumped his arm playfully, but she sounded more serious when she spoke again. “Can I ask something else? Fair warning: it’s _really_ personal.”

At least they were outside, with plenty of things to distract from the intensity. “You can ask me anything.”

“What was it…like?”

It was super fun; his favorite part was believing he’d stabbed Karen with Conway’s knife. “It was weird because Stone was there the whole time.”

“Would you have rather been alone?”

“I would’ve died on my own,” he said.

Her hand squeezed his tighter. “I mean, if you could’ve miraculously survived, would you have rather been alone for the, um, hallucinations?”

He could dodge the question, point out that he still didn’t exactly remember well enough to know what he’d thought in the moment. But that wasn’t fair; he knew the answer because he knew himself. “No. Being around Stone wasn’t that bad because he doesn’t worry about me.” He paused, reevaluating. He still remembered the scents, and Stone had smelled like fear as well. “He doesn’t worry about me _much_.”

“And that’s easier for you,” Karen murmured.

He stopped, tugging her around to face him. “Karen, I…I can’t say enough how sorry I am.”

“You already apologized for the other night. It’s fine.” Then her voice sharpened. “If you’re apologizing for getting _dosed_ , I’m going to find the biggest patch of mud and get Frank to roll around in it.”

Frank was in the corner of the park digging something up, so she was already filthy, but that wasn’t relevant right now. “I mean I…I’m sorry that I’m like this. I know it can’t be easy for you, when I—” He broke off as she pulled her hand free of his.

“Matt, _no_. Stop.” She pushed her hair out of her face—tried to, anyway; the wind kept blowing it back. “We’ve all got baggage, all right? The point is figuring out how to deal with it.”

If that was possible. Then again, Karen was the most stubborn person he knew, aside from maybe himself. Surely they could figure this out through sheer tenacity. He tilted his head slightly. He’d smelled her tears that night, and there were no tears now, but the tension was back. “It hurts you when I push you away,” he said.

“Um, I think that’s pretty obvious.”

But Maggie told him he needed to pry deeper. “ _Why_ does it hurt you?”

Her head angled up towards the sky with a gusty sigh. “If you really need me to explain that…”

“No, I mean…” He reached for her hand again, relieved when she didn’t resist, and tried to think. “Okay. If I’d kicked Foggy out, he would’ve been hurt, probably because he thought I was violating the list of bad decisions. And…and because he would want to be a good friend, but I’d be obstructing that, so then he’d feel like a bad friend, and that would hurt him.”

“All right,” she said slowly. “Pretty sure there’s more to that, but okay.”

Then he gestured between them with his cane. “And if our positions were reversed, and you were the one kicking me out like that—”

“Which I wouldn’t do,” she pointed out.

She couldn’t _know_ that, though. She hadn’t seen all the things he’d seen or felt all the things he’d felt, but that was definitely not the issue to argue about right now. “I’m just saying that if you pushed me away like that, I wouldn’t like it because I’d worry about you, obviously, and—”

“ _I_ was worrying about you!”

He let go of her to place his hand over her mouth. “Hush, please? I’m trying something here.”

She made a muffled noise of indignation, but didn’t pull away.

“So aside from worry, I would think that you didn’t trust me to take care of you.” He frowned. “And—this is horrible, please forgive me—I think it would hurt my pride.”

She hummed against his palm until he dropped it. “Does this mean you’re trying to ask what _kind_ of hurt I felt?”

Genius; it sounded so much simpler when she phrased it that way. He nodded.

“There was the trust thing too,” she said immediately, like she’d already thought about it and expertly categorized it. “It hurt because it felt like you didn’t trust me to take care of you. But it’s not just taking care of you physically. It hurt because it still feels like you don’t trust me to take care of you when you’re emotionally vulnerable.”

First off, “emotionally vulnerable” were two words that he never wanted to hear in reference to himself ever again. Second, he was losing track of the number of times he’d broken down around her, so that didn’t really make sense. “Karen, you’ve seen me…” Ugh. “Cry.”

One of her hands was still in his; the other moved gently up his arm. “I know,” she said softly. “But given the _choice_ , you almost always choose to be alone when you’re upset.”

Ah. He could concede that. “Can I…can I tell you why?”

“Because you don’t want me to see you like that.”

He took a deep breath. “Yes, but can I tell you why?”

Her other hand settled on the side of his neck, and maybe he was imagining things but he thought she might be feeling his pulse. “Yes.”

“Because I’ve always been told I’m not supposed to be upset at all.”

“Stick?” she suggested quietly.

He shrugged. “Stick. The nuns. Even my dad wasn’t exactly…I mean…” How to explain this? “It’s not like I ever saw him break down. I knew he did, especially after…” He waved generally at his face. “But he didn’t let me see it. Because he didn’t want to worry me, I think.”

“Matt, can I be really honest with you?”

He raised his eyebrows. “At this point, I hope so.”

“I’d worry _less_ if you showed me that you were upset.”

There was no lie in her heartbeat, but that didn’t make sense, although it did sound vaguely like something Foggy would say. “But why?”

She let out a surprised laugh. “Because then I know that you’re not crazy! When something bad happens, people are _supposed_ to get upset. It’s how we deal with things. So if you don’t let me know that you’re upset, I can’t be sure you’re dealing with it at all, and if you don’t let me see you when you’re upset, I can’t be sure you’re dealing with it the right way. But if we can walk through the pain and fear _together_ , I know that we’re…you know, moving forward.”

Together. Moving forward. “I’ll…” She deserved this; she deserved everything. “I’ll try?” It sounded like a question. “I’ll try to, uh, show you. More. If you want.”

She shifted slightly closer. “Thank you. Thank you for telling me all of this.”

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I assume you still have questions.” She’d always have questions.

She slipped her fingers into his belt loops. “It’s just that we’ve been so focused on immediate problems that we haven’t had much time to look forwards, but now…”

He grinned. “Now? Are we doing something different, Miss Page?”

Her lips parted as she smiled, ducking her head adorably.

He’d _definitely_ made the right choice in prioritizing this. “Will you go out with me again tomorrow?”

 

Karen

She was already nodding and didn’t bother to narrate. Instead, she let go of his belt loops and started walking again, leaving him to follow if he wanted. (Of course he wanted.) Frank zoomed by again, but this time she didn’t distract. “Promise me something?” Karen asked, studying the trees with their pale blossoms straining to bloom, still held back by the green buds.

His hand found hers again. “Yeah?”

“No matter what happens with Fisk and Vanessa…” She kept her eyes away from him. “Promise me you won’t leave.” He’d never physically leave her to face this threat on her own, but they both knew that wasn’t what she was talking about. “I don’t care how dangerous it gets. I don’t care if you think you can keep me or Foggy safe somehow by shutting us out. I don’t _care_. I’d rather have you.”

“I’d rather have you, too,” he said earnestly, without hesitation.

“Promise me, Matt.”

He tugged her to a stop once more and moved her palm across the planes of his chest to rest above his heart. “I promise.”

She believed him.

“Actually,” he said abruptly, “I…”

She waited. And waited. “Yes?”

With a small head shake, he kept going again, swiping up another stick and tapping it absently against his leg until Frank came racing back to join them. He threw it, but she overshot yet again, her muddy-yet-fluffy tail streaming behind her as she bolted towards one tree specifically for no apparent reason.

Karen had just given up on him ever finishing his thought when, without warning, he spoke. “Were your parents married?”

He rarely asked about her family. Half of the time she appreciated it because she didn’t exactly love remembering all of that either. But sometimes it felt like he was avoiding her history. She crossed her arms, trying not to shiver as the breeze picked up again. “Yes. My dad never remarried after we, um, lost her.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“Why?”

“Just, uh…what are your thoughts on that?”

Holy…she knew her heart was speeding up. “Okay,” she said quickly, “can we agree that you’re not allowed to assume things based on my heartbeat for the rest of this conversation?”

His eyes shuttered. “I can’t help it.”

She instantly wished she could take it back. “I know. I’m sorry—that wasn’t fair.”

He swallowed. “We could have this conversation over the phone or something, if that makes you feel more comfortable, or—”

She was so in love with this accidentally invasive idiot. “It’s fine, Matt. I’m used to it, really. I shouldn’t have said anything. What…what were you saying?”

Still, he hesitated. “You sure?”

“I’m _completely_ sure.” She really, really hoped her heartbeat was backing her up.

It must have been, because he gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. “So…your thoughts on marriage?”

She still sort of wished Frank would come rushing back to them, but no, Frank was pawing through another mud patch. “I don’t know. It sounds nice, but it has all these stigmas attached that are kind of…” She frowned, looking for words, then laughed a little as an explanation came to her. “I guess if I could just come up with my own version of it, I’d probably like it. I don’t think I’m sold on everyone else’s ideas.” She bumped his shoulder again. “Why?”

“It’s just, um…to me, marriage is a…” His ears reddened, or maybe he was just cold. “A covenant.”

She raised her eyebrows.

He gestured awkwardly at nothing. “Like a contract…”

“I know what a covenant is, Matt. I work with two lawyers.”

“Right.” He wet his lips. She needed to stop staring at his lips. “But for, uh, Catholics, a covenant isn’t just a contract. I mean, yes, it has the weight of a legal agreement, but it’s also…personal. Really personal.” He took a long, steady breath in. “A covenant is how God promises never to leave us. A promise that…that nothing can separate us from Him, not even our own sin.”

She wasn’t religious. He knew that. And she knew that he didn’t particularly care about some of the details of a Catholic marriage—the prohibition against sex outside of it being the most obvious. So she wasn’t sure what he was trying to say now.

She was, however, certain that he knew exactly what he was trying to say even if he wasn’t quite sure how to say it.

“I know you don’t believe all of that,” he said, quieter now. “I just want you to know that _I_ do. I believe a covenant like…like…like marriage or something…is a promise to never leave, and let nothing separate. So I wouldn’t…I mean, I’d only…” He trailed off with a mumble.

“Matt,” she said slowly. “Are you…?”

“No,” he said quickly. “Not—not yet. I just wanted you to, you know, understand what this means. For me.”

She blinked. Of course. Of _course_ this utter dork would ruin the surprise of a proposal by first making sure he’d _properly defined the relevant terms_. She had the sudden, evil impulse to play dumb, to force him to keep stammering his way through an explanation. Instead, she played dumber, like she had no idea why he was bringing any of this up at all. “Okay. Nice.”

A lame response, yes, but it was in his interest not to push her on it, and he seemed distinctly grateful to let the subject drop now that he’d made his point. They started talking about something entirely inconsequential, but her brain was doing that thing again where it pictured him walking around with a toddler in his arms, only this time there was also the glint of a ring on his finger.

 

Matt

“Swoosh!” Ella yelled. “Ha! Hiya!"

Matt thought she was trying to make sound effects, but he wasn’t sure. Micah was leaning on the ropes, watching Matt and Ella dance back and forth in the ring at Fogwell’s. Matt dodged her punches, sometimes to the side or backing away but sometimes advancing on her, forcing her to punch back while retreating, which was a bit trickier. She was doing well, though. In fact, her form was significantly better than last time. “Have you been practicing?”

“Uh-huh!” She tried a faster jab-cross combo that was actually almost fast. She was snapping her arm straight out and back instead of swinging around like she used to.

Impressive. “You just figured it out on your own?”

“We-ell…” Her head turned towards Micah before she refocused on Matt. “Pretty much.”

He tried to remember if she’d already had a habit of lying and keeping secrets before she’d met him. “Ella, what—” He cut himself off with an inward hiss as her next strike hit him exactly over a stab wound across his abs.

It was barely possible that he’d been a bit too ambitious his first night out as Daredevil after the second dose of devil’s hell, slightly possible that his reaction time hadn’t been quite as good as usual. He was fine, though; it was just a minor cut. Besides, his shirt was either black or something close to it, which was probably why Ella didn’t notice.

She did, however, notice the blood now streaked across her fist. “Matt!” she shrieked. “I’m bleeding!”

Micah’s entire body tensed.

“You’re not bleeding,” Matt said quickly. “I am. It’s okay.”

“You’re hurt?” If anything, she sounded even more upset now. “I hurt you?”

“No, no, I was already hurt. I’m _not_ hurt.” Nothing he was saying as helping. “You didn’t hurt me. I’m fine.”

“But why are you bleeding?”

“Good question,” Micah muttered under his breath.

“I got stabbed; it’s fine.” He took her hand. “Let me see.” He ran his thumb gently over her small fist, tracking the smear of blood which spread all the way from the stronger part of her hand to the weaker parts. “You’re twisting your wrist too much. You should really just be hitting me with these two bigger knuckles. Not with your entire hand.”

She flexed her fingers in his grip. “Do you need a band aid?”

“No. Focus,” he instructed sternly. He held up his hand. “I want you to hit my palm so I can feel your form.”

She hesitated, then tentatively stretched forward to lightly tap her fist against his palm.

He concentered on the feel. Her two foremost knuckles were most prominent. “Better. Try a little harder.”

She did, technically, but the difference was barely distinguishable.

“Harder,” he reminded her.

She dropped her hand wordlessly to her side.

“Ella,” he said patiently. “If I’m a bad guy—”

“But you’re _not_.”

“Matt,” Micah called from the outside of the ring. “Would these be better?” He was holding up two small, round…things.

Matt frowned. “What are those?”

Micah turned the things over as if inspecting them. “Target pads of some kind. I found them under a bench in the back.”

“Target pads?” he repeated confusedly.

“So you can spar with someone else without getting hurt, I imagine.”

“You mean, gloves?” Whatever he was holding, they didn’t seem like gloves.

“No,” Micah said slowly. “Pads. Just—Matt, come here.”

The whole thing was a distraction from her training, but Matt was curious. He trotted over to the ropes while Ella hung back, spinning in a circle as she was prone to do if he left her alone too long; she said she liked the feel of the mat when she inevitably fell over. Reaching Micah, Matt ran his fingers over a thick, flat pad. There were straps on the back, presumably to secure the targets to a person’s hand.

“You never used these before?” Micah asked, suspicion leaking into his voice. “Did your private tutor not use them?”

“These are counterproductive,” Matt said immediately, dismissively. “There’s no way for her to tell how accurate she is if she’s not hitting an actual person.”

“Unless you want to focus on form all by itself and not worry about targets, at least until you’re healed.”

Matt snorted. “If we waited for me to be healed, she’d _never_ learn targets.”

“Or you could save targets for a day when you’re not _actively bleeding_.”

“Again, that’s pretty much my constant state of existence, so unless you—”

“Matt,” Micah interrupted in a harsh whisper. “I don’t care if you don’t think it’s a problem; _she_ doesn’t want to hurt you and I expect you to respect that.”

Was he really being lectured on training methods right now? As if what Matt was doing was anything close to how Stick had chosen to train him. He was about to keep arguing when Ella wandered dizzily up behind him to join them, catching Micah’s hand through the ropes and using it for balance.

“Daddy? What’s wrong?”

Right. Micah was the authority here. Matt nodded shortly and held out his hand for the pads. “New plan, Ella. You’re gonna punch these until you’re keeping your wrist straight.”

She rose up on her toes to inspect the pads. Apparently satisfied, she scurried back to the center of the ring.

“Thank you,” Micah said quietly.

Shrugging, Matt rejoined Ella. “Okay, so I’ll hold these up, and you’ll, uh…” His head snapped around at the sound of Peter’s rapidly-approaching heartbeat and the accompanying _thwip-thwip-thwip_ of his webs.

She raised her hand hesitantly like she expected to be called on. “How do I—”

“Shh.” He turned towards the window. “Someone’s coming and I don’t know if…”

If there was danger.

“Get away from the window,” he ordered, stepping in front of her.

“What’s happening?” Micah demanded.

“Someone’s coming.” Matt shuffled Ella backwards. “He’s a friend, but he’s scared.”

A moment later, Peter splattered against the floor-to-ceiling window. Ella yelped while Peter scrambled along the window, yelling that he was being followed by a crazy guy with a gun.

A chill raced up Matt’s spine. Scooping Ella up, he ducked out of the ring and thrust her at Micah. “You need to get her out of here.”

“Wasn’t that Spiderman?” Micah spluttered.

Peter burst through the front door. “I don’t know how long we have, Ma—” He choked. “Daredevil.” He skidded to a stop. “What are _they_ doing here?”

Matt was going to be furious about this once they were no longer in imminent danger. “Micah, _go_. Take the alleys.”

“Wouldn’t it be safer to—”

“Whatever you might meet in an alley is safer than whatever person Spiderman brought here.”

“I didn’t bring him,” Peter blustered.

Matt ignored him. Ella had squirmed out of Micah’s grasp and was standing defiantly in front of Matt. “I can help!”

This was not happening. Before Matt could list all the reasons why she absolutely could _not_ help—or, better yet, tell Peter to web her up in a cocoon—Micah crouched next to her and whispered something too fast for Matt to catch, though he thought he heard his own name. When Micah stood back up, Ella dashed forward to hug Matt, but she darted back again before he could even reciprocate. She didn’t resist when Micah ushered her out the door.

“I’m sorry,” Peter gasped. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t expecting anyone else, I just heard you here and I thought—”

“ _Shh_ ,” Matt hissed, holding completely still and straining his senses. To the east, Ella had scrambled onto Micah’s back, and now Micah was running through the alley. To the west, the smell of gunpowder was coming.

Dex? He should’ve been in prison!

“Where’d he come from?” Matt hissed.

“What’s that supposed to mean? He just found me when I was patrolling.”

“By the prison?”

“No, by Twelfth Street.”

Dex was out. Dex had _been_ out, and Matt hadn’t had any idea. “And you’re sure he’s following you?”

“Has been for the past ten minutes,” Peter insisted, voice pitched a bit too high.

At least that meant Matt could assume Dex would end up here. Good. He backed into the shadows against the wall perpendicular to the door. “Listen to me very closely, Peter. We can beat him if we can trap him in here. Once he gets in, web the doors and windows shut, and then web down everything that can move.”

“…What?”

“Everything he can throw! Web it down and then stay back. I’ll get in close.” Matt twitched his head towards the front door. “He’s here. Back away.”

Peter hopped directly onto the ceiling which wasn’t exactly what Matt had in mind, but all right. Peter had time to web one window closed before a bullet shattered the glass door, burying itself in the base of the ring. Dex stuck his hand through the gap, holding a knife with his arm cocked to throw at Spiderman.

Trusting Peter to dodge this first attack, Matt allowed the knife to fly. But as soon as Dex lowered his arm to reach for another weapon, Matt lunged. He tore the pistol free, throwing it behind him (he heard Peter catch it with webbing). Grabbing Dex’s shoulders, Matt pulled him bodily into the gym and kicked the door closed. Webbing immediately shot past him, gluing the door shut and stretching to cover the hole.

“Both of you,” Dex muttered, spinning in a circle in the center of the gym, neck popping as he looked wildly around. “Both of you.”

“What is this guy’s _problem?_ ” Peter demanded, sealing another window shut while he crawled overhead.

Matt ran towards Dex, who was too slow to keep Matt’s fist from snapping his head backwards. Dex tripped over the bench, snatched up Ella’s water bottle, and tossed it. Matt swiped the plastic projectile out of the air, but Dex had bought himself enough time to hurl another knife. The blade sank into the arm Matt threw in front of his face to protect himself.

Then Peter shot webbing not at any potential weapon but right at Dex.

It caught him in the side of the face, but Dex apparently had enough working vision to launch something else at Peter, too fast for Matt to tell exactly what it was. With a shriek, Peter lost his grip on the ceiling, crashing to the ground and filling the air with the smell of blood.

Matt hesitated for a split second, torn between Peter and Dex, and Dex took the chance to spin and run, out of Matt’s range. Matt pulled Dex’s knife out of his own arm and threw it, but Dex ducked, picked up the weapon, and drove it into the one un-webbed window with the force of his entire body. Glass shattered as Dex escaped, his pounding footsteps lost under the sound of approaching sirens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ella's water bottle is pink with horses on it but, sadly, Matt is unaware of this fact. And for the record, fight scenes with webbing are so much fun.


	21. Fully Known and Loved by You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: cliff hanger. I'll update first thing tomorrow (I hope). In the meantime, enjoy what I've privately named the Chapter of a Thousand Phone Calls.

Matt

“Peter, Peter, get up.” The sirens were drawing closer and Matt and Peter were both dripping blood all over the gym floor.

Peter’s eyepieces whirred tiredly. “Wha…?”

“There we go,” Matt whispered. “C’mon, I need you on your feet.”

“’Kay.” Peter started to push himself upwards, gasping for breath as the shuriken caught in his stomach shifted.

“Not like _that_ ,” Matt hissed, maneuvering Peter first onto his side and then into an upright position. It couldn’t have been painless, but it was better than trying an ab crunch over a blade. “C’mon, we’ve gotta go.”

The sirens were louder now. Maybe someone had heard Dex’s gunshot? Taking Peter’s weight, Matt half-carried him to the shattered window. Peter was so small that Matt actually did carry him through the gap so Peter wouldn’t get caught on glass. They’d left enough DNA behind already.

Speaking of which. New York required anyone convicted of a felony to submit a DNA sample to the databank. Peter was fine since he’d never been convicted. Matt Murdock, however, once pled guilty to manslaughter. Dex’s attack on Foggy at the restaurant had involved so much blood spilled from innocent bystanders as well as combatants (not to mention various sauces) that DNA samples would’ve been inconclusive. The gym, though? Not so much.

Matt moved as fast as possible without jostling Peter, finally depositing him behind a dumpster several buildings down to focused on the wound. The shuriken hadn’t sunk too deep, thank God. “Peter, if I leave this in and leave you alone for five minutes, do you swear you won’t move?”

“Why?” he bit out between pained breaths.

“I’ve gotta go dump bleach all over the gym before the police look at it.”

Peter stiffened, suddenly pushing at him. “Go! Matt, go, go, go!”

Even with a shuriken in his stomach, Peter was strong enough to push Matt back, which was enough incentive for Matt to spin around and sprint back to Fogwell’s. He grabbed a towel to wrap around his still-bleeding arm, dug bleach out of the supply closet, and artlessly poured the gallon over every place where he could smell his or Peter’s blood. The police were right outside, but Peter’s webbing still sealed the door shut, giving Matt time to snatch the first aid kit from on top of a locker and bolt back out the broken window.

He didn’t stop running until he returned to Peter, skidding to a halt, setting the first aid kit between them. “Let me look at you.”

“You risked your identity for a _first aid kit?_ ”

“I told you, it was for the bleach. This was an afterthought.” He opened the kit. “I’ll count to three and pull it out. One, two—” He jerked it out on two before Peter could tense up, and started on the stitches, hearing Peter gasp through clenched teeth. Right, not everyone was as used to being stitched up without pain meds. “If I had anything I could give you, I would.”

Peter’s head turned like he was straining to get away. “Can I keep talking? Does that throw you off?” He barely gave Matt the time to assure him that it was fine before he kept going. “Is this a bad time to mention that Vanessa got arrested? You know about that, right?”

“Indicted, actually,” Matt corrected automatically.

“So, hey, we did it, right?” His voice tightened as Matt drew the thread through his skin. “Yay, us.”

Matt grinned faintly. “Yeah, Peter. We did it. But Fisk could try to take it out on either of us.” Once Vanessa got ahold of the police reports, she’d know Spiderman was involved even if she hadn’t already figured it out for herself. “Call me if anything makes you suspicious. I mean _anything_.”

“Yes, dad,” Peter muttered.

They both froze.

Clearing his throat, Matt tied off the last of the stitches. Then he cleared his throat again. “You’re good. Go easy on this, though. No flips for at least—”

“Healing factor,” Peter interrupted. “I’ll be back to normal in like two days.”

“Healing…what?”

“Factor. It’s what the cool kids call it.” Peter poked at the wound.

“Healing factor,” Matt repeated dumbly.

“I’m guessing yours takes a bit longer,” Peter said knowingly, “since you’re pretty much always beat up somehow.”

Matt gave a bewildered shake of his head. “I don’t _have_ a healing factor.”

Peter winced. “Seriously?”

Matt was already jealous of the spider sense, and now the kid got to have a healing factor too? Although, if only one of them could have it, he was immensely grateful that it was Peter. “I meditate. It helps with the healing process.”

“I guess.” Peter did not sound convinced.

Stuffing everything back into the kit, Matt heaved a sigh. “What kind of medical supplies do you have?”

Peter shrugged. “Like, normal stuff, I guess. Sometimes I steal stuff from school.”

“This is yours now,” Matt decided, thrusting the kit at him and making a mental note to buy something else for Fogwell’s after the police had cleared away. “And since I do _not_ have a healing factor, I’m gonna go find someone to stitch my arm back together. Keep your head down, okay?”

“Or I could do it,” Peter offered.

“Do what?”

“Stitch,” Peter said. “I bet you could teach me, and that way you could get help right now instead of running around bleeding everywhere trying to—”

“No,” Matt said flatly.

Peter deflated for a second before perking up again. “Oh, yeah, I guess you probably don’t want to teach me on your arm, but maybe next time we could practice on, like, fruit or something.”

“No,” Matt repeated.

“But I feel like that’s something I should—”

“I’m not teaching you how to stitch me up,” Matt snapped, and something in his expression must have stopped Peter from arguing.

“Just get home safe, then?” Peter asked in a quieter voice.

“Yeah, you too.” Matt hesitated, then impulsively reached out and ruffled Peter’s hair. “Do…do your homework before we meet up again. And, Peter…be _careful_.”

 

If (when) he needed top-quality medical care, Maggie was his favorite. She kept up a stream of wry commentary that made it easy to distract himself from the ordeal, she was skilled, and she might be sarcastic but she also was prone to say something indicating that she admired him.

If the wound wasn’t so bad that he needed someone with more experience, however, yet still bad enough that he needed _someone_ , he’d rather go to Karen than Foggy or Claire. He often _didn’t_ go to Karen, but that was solely because it was unfair to demand her services whenever he couldn’t keep himself from getting hurt.

But she wanted him to be more honest when he was hurting, and even though she wasn’t talking about physical pain, he still sent a text inquiring as to whether she was awake.

 _Are you okay?_ she texted.

_Just wondering if there’s a first aid kit handy._

_I’ll be at your place in ten._

He would’ve sent a text back telling her she didn’t have to leave her apartment, but he knew from experience that it would be futile. He pushed away the voice that said he shouldn’t have texted her at all, trusting instead that if she drove to his place in the middle of the night just to take care of him, it was because she somehow thought it was worth it.

Sure enough, she was waiting for him when he got back—not just waiting for him in the apartment, but on the roof. For some stupid reason, that made his heart skip.

“How bad?” She shifted the first aid kit propped against her hip.

“Not bad. Just my arm.”

“Couch, then,” she decided, letting him lead the way into the apartment and down the stairs. “I stocked up on kale and tuna, by the way.”

“Come again?” He nudged Frank aside lest she lick the blood, his or Peter’s, off his hands.

“Kale and tuna are high in iron. You can’t keep living off protein bars.”

“I do not live off protein bars,” he protested.

Scoffing, she settled him on the couch and sat beside him with her legs tucked underneath her. “Lose the shirt.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He shucked it awkwardly and held out his arm, trying not to visibly melt at the feeling of her soft hands touching him without a hint of the exasperation or impatience that anyone trying to heal him had the right to feel.

She dug out the antiseptic wipes. “How’d this happen?”

“Dex.”

Her head snapped up. “ _Dex?_ ”

“He got out somehow, I guess. I’ve gotta call the prison tomorrow, figure out what happened. He was chasing Spiderman.”

“Dex has a problem with Spiderman?”

Matt bit his tongue at the sting of the alcohol. It was a good point; why should Dex care about a vigilante from Queens? “He was probably stalking Spiderman to get to me. He knows I’m Daredevil and it’s public record that I took Spiderman’s case.”

“Or maybe Dex just hates vigilante superheroes,” Karen pointed. “Doesn’t have to be because of you.”

He shrugged, too tired argue, and just leaned back against the couch, closing his eyes and focusing his senses elsewhere as she stuck the needle through his skin. Their scents were mostly a pleasant distraction, twisted together around the apartment, except that they were more strongly interwoven around the first aid kit than anywhere else.

He realized he hated it. Foggy and Marci’s place was something they shared. Setting foot in the church surrounded him with the traces of the nuns mingling with countless faithful strangers. And the Valliers? Their home was full of their three scents woven together.

Family.

His place, though? There was Frank. And there were hints of Foggy, Karen, Maggie, and Claire. But it wasn’t…permanent. It wasn’t woven together. The only permanence belonged to him alone.

It was exactly what Stick always wanted for him. Well, it wasn’t fair to blame Stick—Matt had convinced himself that he wanted to be alone, too. Actually, no. He’d never quite been able to go that far. But he’d at least convinced himself that he _needed_ to be alone.

Matt tilted his head, breathing in the solitary scents. It felt like a lifetime ago when he’d broken back into his own home just to pretend to be part of everyday life long enough to sneak into a prison. He’d been on a mission, yet stepping into his apartment had felt like stepping up to the edge of a bubble between worlds. He’d been gone for so long by that point that the different rooms bore scarcely any of the signs of life he was used to. Really, the only hints of life had come from Karen. That was no longer true; he’d restored the place to something inhabited. But even now, each place she touched seemed lit up compared to everywhere else.

Her breath ghosted across his skin as she leaned closer, her hair falling over his bare chest. She swore quietly as the needle slipped. “Sorry.”

“You’re doing great.” She was still better at stitching him up than he was at stitching himself. He drifted his hand to rest on her knee, running his thumb in circles over the skin. There was a tiny scar there. It’d taken a while to get up the courage to ask where it came from, since he hadn’t _really_ wanted to open the door to all the questions about his own scars, but she’d finally told him it was from a bike when she was a kid. She’d been in a race with her brother. She’d won.

Maggie was right: his senses gave him unique insight, but she deserved to be discovered deeper every day. He wasn’t sure he had what it would take, but he also knew that this particular challenge was worth lifelong dedication.

The only question was how to make that happen. Although she probably knew how he felt about her, he wanted her to hear it over and over again. He wanted her to see it demonstrated undeniably, unashamedly. He wanted her to bask in it.

 “You okay?” she whispered. “You tensed up.”

He was also stifling a smile that would probably look psychopathic, given the amount of blood on his skin. “I’m fine.”

“If you say so.” She focused anew on stitching.

He wasn’t sure how to pull it off. She insisted that he could be impressively romantic when he wanted, but he wasn’t so sure.  He’d think of something, though.

He’d need help finding the ring.

 

Karen

“There,” she said proudly, tying off the last stitch. “Good as new.”

“Not likely.” He brushed his fingers over her work.

“Stop it, you’ll mess it up.”

“Not good as new then, is it?”

He could be so annoying. “If you get an infection, I’m taking you to a hospital.”

His eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“Try me. Go shower.” While he wandered into the bathroom, she put away the medical supplies, washed her hands, and collected one of the books she’d started leaving here, since his apartment was a bit lacking for visual entertainment. Curling up on the couch, she tried not to fall asleep.

About fifteen minutes later, he emerged from the bedroom with wet hair, bundled up in a hoodie and wearing sweatpants tucked into fuzzy socks. “You’re still here.”

“Mmm,” she said absently, turning the page.

He moved silently to sit beside her, but he left several inches of space between them. “Do you want to stay tonight?”

She set the book aside to drink in the sight of him. Not bad, even swaddled in comfort clothing. “You have to ask?”

“I mean…” He wet his lips. “I’m thinking tonight will be bad.”

Oh. “Why?”

His lips quirked up like he was trying to smile, but his gaze fixated somewhere around the kitchen and his voice was carefully emotionless when he answered. “Ella was at the gym tonight.”

“With _Dex?_ ”

“If Dex hadn’t been so focused on Peter and me…” Matt heaved a sigh. “It’s fine. They’re fine. It was just a close call, that’s all. Given that she was part of the hallucinations, I can only assume that I have some deep-seated fear of something happening to her.” He sounded almost sarcastic, which was completely undermined by the way he was fidgeting restlessly with the fabric of his sweatpants.

She could follow the logic, though. Fear of Ella in harm’s way plus an experience like today equaled nightmares. “And you’re saying you want me to spend the night?”

From the look on his face, no, he didn’t _want_ that. He nodded anyway.

Something warm and squishy took up residence in her chest. “Okay,” she said quietly. “I’ll stay with you.”

“Just…” He grimaced. “If I hurt you, I swear it’s not on purpose, I just—”

“Matt Murdock, if you _actually_ think I think you’d hit me on purpose, we’re not sleeping until we have a very serious discussion.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Standing up, he held out a hand.

They both settled on the bed in his room, but though she was on her side facing him, he was flat on his back with his sightless eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. “You really gonna sleep like that?” she whispered.

“I’m rethinking everything.”

She smiled. “It’ll be okay.”

“Or I could just go punch people, you know? I hear—” He sat up. “There’s a fistfight just down the street. I should…” He sank back down again. “Never mind. They’re splitting up.”

He could’ve not told her that. Or could’ve made up a better crime to go stop, like a kidnapping. But he was being honest.

He was also lying stiff with tension.

“C’mere.” Pulling him towards her, she lowered his head until his ear was against her chest. “Focus on me, all right?”

He didn’t answer, but the tension faded, bit by bit, from his shoulders. Eventually, his breathing deepened. His arms settled around her waist until he was holding her like she was…honestly, like she was one of those full-body pillows.

She didn’t mind. At all.

 

She woke to hushed, desperate sounds and a warm body twitching against hers. His lips were pressed together, muffling the pinched-off whimpering. He was still curled into her and now her collarbone was wet with his tears.

With the utmost care, she moved her arm over his body until she could thread her fingers through the shorter hair at the nape of his neck, a spot she knew was sensitive. It seemed to work. He made a confused noise, and then she felt his damp eyelashes brush her skin as he opened his eyes.

Now he held very still, and aside from stroking his hair, she didn’t move either. Then, without warning, he withdrew far enough to sit up, scooted back against the wall so he could sit with his knees pulled to his chest.

Was he waiting for her questions? “We don’t have to talk,” she said quietly. “You could just go back to sleep.”

He nodded tightly.

She sat cross-legged, facing him. “It wasn’t real. Whatever just happened, it wasn’t real.”

“I know. I just…” He let out a slow, measured exhale. “Gotta get rid of the, uh…feeling.”

It seemed so unfair that a nightmare’s emotions—fear, anger, loneliness, whatever—should linger even after waking up. “Can I help?”

His head turned towards her, blind eyes drifting towards her chest. “Can I…” He moved his hand over her heart.

“I’m right here,” she whispered. And she wasn’t going anywhere.

 

Maggie

Having Matthew in her life was doing wonders for her time management. She wanted to be ready at any moment if he needed her…or even if he merely wanted her. Which was why, when he called this morning asking if she could meet him over lunch, she’d agreed.

Now she was realizing that lunch might be an excuse, since they were at a mall but he seemed entirely uninterested in any of the food shops as he made small talk about a case. In other circumstances, she might have assumed that he wanted nothing more than casual conversation with her.

Except that they were at a mall. Between all the scents of perfume shops and crowds and the food court, she knew he preferred to avoid malls, which meant there was a very specific reason he’d brought her here, important enough to outweigh the sensory discomfort.

Maybe she was jumping to conclusions, but it all made sense when he stopped outside a jewelry store.

His head cocked towards her. “Yeah. I was hoping for help picking something out.”

“Something,” she repeated casually.

“Mom…” He wrapped both hands around his cane. “I’m gonna ask Karen to marry me.”

Maggie’s mouth fell open. She wanted to say how proud she was, how excited she was, how it was about time, but her mind locked onto memories of Jack. She and Jack hadn’t had a ceremony; they’d had two rings and a judge and a piece of paper. And it wasn’t Jack’s fault it hadn’t worked. Looking at her son, she wished…she just _wished_.

But his eyebrows drew closer together ever so slightly. “Everything okay?”

“Let me process the fact that I’m about to get a daughter-in-law,” Maggie retorted.

“Well, only if she says yes.”

Maggie rolled her eyes. “Nice to see you exercising some humility for once.”

He snorted, but a small smile was fluttering around his mouth. “So, you’ll help me?”

In answer, she pushed open the door.

He followed her along into the shop and stood in the center, head tilting. “What am I looking at here?”

“A lot of glass cases,” she answered, waving away an assistant who popped out from behind the counter. She studied the various displays. “What are you thinking of?”

“Honestly, I’ve no idea.”

“Well, what has she told you she likes?”

His lips parted in confusion. “She…hasn’t?”

“You haven’t _talked_ about this?” Maggie asked in disbelief. While he stammered defensively, she ignored him and called Foggy. “Hi, there, do you know what Karen’s looking for in a ring?”

“ _A ring?_ ” That triggered a spewing of various exclamations and expletives, entirely directed at Matthew, who winced at the noises coming from the phone.

“Yell at him later,” Maggie interrupted. “Do you have anything useful for us?”

Foggy grumbled something unintelligible and then got with the program. “Something simple,” he reported. “She likes round stones, not the square ones. Anything but diamond, but I think she likes sapphire. You know,” he added, voice turning sing-song, “like her eyes.”

Maggie covered the phone with one hand. “Are you getting this?”

Matthew was nodding, a tiny smile across his lips and a blush across his cheeks.

“And she wants the band to be gold,” Foggy went on. “Her mom had a gold band.” He paused. “Uh…we were pretty drunk when we were talking about this…”

“Thank you, Foggy.”

“No problem. Tell him he owes me an apology, preferably with drinks and remorseful tears.”

Matthew raised his voice a little. “I heard that.”

Maggie hung up, pushing her son towards some of the cases. “A few of these—”

His phone started chirping. “Maeva, Maeva, Maeva.”

“We’re popular today,” Maggie remarked. “Ella’s mother has your phone number?”

“It’s probably Ella. Do you mind?” When she didn’t object, he pulled out his phone and took a step backwards. “Hey,” he said softly. “What’s up?” Whatever she said in response made him grin. “Yeah, I know, that was crazy. But hey, you got to meet Spiderman.” His grin broadened. “Yeah, maybe. I think he’d like you. What? No, I’m actually with my mom right now.” He shrugged, shooting a questioning look at Maggie and holding out the phone. “She wants to talk to you.”

Maggie held the phone up to her ear. “Hello? Ella?”

“Hello,” a small voice said, sweet and painfully shy. “You’re Matt’s mom?”

“I am,” she said, with the usual small thrill of pride.

“Is he okay? I think he got in a fight yesterday.”

She glanced up and down Matthew’s body. “He got taken care of, I think.”

Ella gave a careworn sigh. “He needs to be more careful.”

Maggie stifled a laugh at the sight of Matthew’s appropriately chagrined expression. “I’ll tell him that.”

Ella was quiet for a moment; Maggie waited patiently. “Can I meet you sometime?”

Matthew looked hesitantly excited, so Maggie said warmly, “I’d love that.”

“One second,” Ella said, and there was a rustling sound like she was moving the phone around. “What?” Ella asked, voice more distant now. A female adult voice answered her, and then there was a sound like Ella was squishing the phone to her ear again. “Mom wants to invite you to dinner sometime!”

Maggie nodded solemnly, even though she couldn’t see it. “Should I bring Matthew, or is this just for girls?”

That apparently required thought, because she didn’t answer right away. When she finally said, “You can bring him,” it sounded like she was bestowing on him a great favor. “Tell him to be more careful,” Ella ordered once more. Then, her mission apparently accomplished, she said goodbye and hung up.

“Thank you,” Matthew said immediately.

Maggie watched him carefully as she handed back his phone. He couldn’t possibly be thanking her for agreeing to go to dinner in and of itself. But she didn’t comment as she nudged him forward to discuss an array of rings.

 

Karen

Neither Matt nor Foggy were back from their lunch break yet, though they hadn’t gone out together. Foggy was probably meeting up with Marci, and Matt…she didn’t know what he was doing. But neither of them were at the office and she was trying to take advantage of the chance to get work done without their shenanigans when her phone rang.

Unknown number.

For no good reason, something told her not to answer. She stared at the number. Maybe it was a spam call, in which case there was nothing to gain by answering. Maybe it was connected to Fisk or Vanessa, in which case…if they wanted her to answer, that meant she definitely shouldn’t.

The phone stopped ringing. There was no voicemail.

She let out a slow breath. Maybe they were trying to distract her, or pin down her location. Too bad for them.

Then it started ringing again.

Karen gritted her teeth and swiped her thumb over the screen. “Hello?”

“Miss Page,” Vanessa said.

A shiver shot through her spine as hot anger flashed through the rest of her. “What do you want?”

“You’re not a reporter anymore, but you still have those resources, don’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

“I know Mr. Murdock is behind my arrest and I know you were involved, as well. And if I know it, you would be right to assume that my husband knows it as well. As does a certain ex-FBI agent who is now free to wreak havoc as he wishes.” She coughed delicately. “Miss Page, are you aware of the deal Mr. Murdock made with my husband?”

“If you think that deal gives you free reign to unleash a fear drug on innocent people—”

“My point is that you must be aware of the danger you now find yourself in. And not just you, and not just Mr. Murdock. Mr. Nelson’s safety is also jeopardized.” She paused. “Not to mention others who have come to our awareness.”

Karen’s mouth dried. Dex knew Maggie; Dex spent time with Maggie. Moreover, Dex knew of a connection—albeit a thin one—between Maggie and Matt Murdock. “Who?” Karen demanded.

Vanessa sighed. “I love children. They have such creativity and passion, unrestrained by the arbitrary restrictions adults place on themselves. Not all children are artists in the strictest sense, of course, but they all have that capability. And then there are those precious children who _are_ artists. You keep artwork by one such child hanging in your office, don’t you?”

Karen’s eyes locked onto the picture Ella had drawn for Matt and Foggy when they’d first helped her to stay at Everett Children’s Home. “You wanna go back to jail, Vanessa? Get a nice cell next to your husband?”

“At least we’d be together,” Vanessa said neutrally.

Karen’s jaw was clenched so tight that her voice shook. “You know a lot about me,” she said slowly. “Does that mean you know what I did to Wesley?”

“Is that a threat, Karen?” Her accent stretched over her name.

“I just think you’ll find it less romantic if you end up in a prison hospital instead of a cell next to Fisk.” Or in a grave.

“I didn’t call to upset you. I called to give you time.” Vanessa’s voice became brisk and businesslike. “You have one hour to prove to me that you’ve undone everything you did with your newspaper to hurt my husband’s reputation. In fact, you’re going to turn the story the other direction. Tell the people of Hell’s Kitchen who the real hero is and make the prosecutor drop the charges against me.”

She couldn’t possibly think that was how media actually worked and even if she did, she couldn’t possibly think an hour would suffice. Which meant that this wasn’t a deal; this was a warning. “Or what?”

“Or I show you exactly what will happen if you don’t leave us alone.”

Not _only_ a warning. It was a warning to make sure Karen knew it wasn’t an accident, but it was also an excuse to do exactly what Vanessa wanted to do anyway. 

“An hour,” Vanessa reminded her softly. “You’d better get going.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of y'alls comments are LIFE. Thank you so much. <3
> 
> And...I can't believe this, but we hit 300,000 words with Ella. You all are the most faithful, thoughtful readers imaginable. Seriously, can't believe.
> 
> Also...this isn't super important, but I did more research into New York’s criminal discovery rules and was horrified to discover that the prosecution does NOT have to turn over witness lists (and a lot of other evidence) until “After the jury has been sworn and before the prosecutor`s opening address.” Well, 1) I think that’s a stupid rule that is very unfair to the defendant, and 2) that’s inconsistent with what I wrote for Matt’s trial, sooooo…we’re just gonna ignore than and use nice, normal, fair discovery rules that allow defendants to actually have an idea of what’s being thrown at them (you know, because JUSTICE but also plot but mostly JUSTICE). So in the real world, Vanessa would not know for sure whether Spiderman was involved in her arrest and she definitely wouldn't know whether Matt/Karen/Foggy were involved even if the prosecution wanted to call them as witnesses until right before the trial, but this is not the real world, so we can assume that she'd already know about Spiderman and that she'd find out about Matt/Karen/Foggy as soon as the prosecution decided to call them.


	22. The Kind of Love that's Bullet Proof

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GIANT SPOILER ALERT  
> This chapter justifies the character death warning - have fun?

Foggy

Karen repeatedly lectured him about ambushing Matt, but sometimes ambushes were fair. Sometimes ambushes were necessary. Sometimes ambushes were the only appropriate way to respond when your best friend was ring-shopping for his soon-to-be-apparently-fiancée and _didn’t tell you._

So yeah, Foggy waited until Maggie had left because he didn’t want the blind ninja using her as a shield and then intercepted said blind ninja on his way to the street to hail a cab or whatever he thought he was doing. Matt sensed him coming, obviously, but it was broad daylight and there were plenty of passersby so there was nothing he could do about it.

“You,” Foggy said on approach.

“Hey, Fogs,” Matt said weakly.

“How dare you.”

“Surprise.”

“Lemme see.”

Matt pulled an ornate box out of his pocket, cracking it open to take out the ring. It was a dark blue sapphire, with four tiny aquamarines placed where the center gem met the golden band. Foggy whistled appreciatively.

“And I didn’t know about this because…?”

“Because it was last minute,” Matt explained, handing Foggy the box so he could walk with his cane while holding the ring in his other hand as if, now that he’d taken it out, he didn’t want to stop touching it.

“How’re you gonna ask her?”

“I don’t know,” he said thoughtfully.

“Do _not_ make the proposal last minute.”

He looked affronted. “I do know how to make plans.”

Foggy had yet to see enough evidence of that to survive a summary judgment. “I’m happy for you, man. Seriously.”

“D’you…d’you think she’ll say yes?”

Foggy would’ve laughed except that he remembered how he’d felt proposing to Marci. It was one thing to know with certainty that she loved him _now_ ; it was quite another to ask her to promise to love him forever, no matter what. Still, this was Karen. “Yeah, Matt. I do.”

He nodded gravely, like Foggy’s word was prophecy.

“So speaking of weddings and stuff,” Foggy went on, “I need your calendar clear this weekend to try on your tux.”

“You—my—what?”

“Tux,” Foggy repeated, then stopped and stared dumbly at his best friend. “I forgot.”

Matt half-smiled. “Forgot what?”

“My best man proposal!” At Matt’s look of utter bewilderment, Foggy groaned up at the sky. “I had this whole thing planned. I was gonna take you down to the docks where you beat up criminals and give you a speech about what your friendship means to me and throw in a few lines about how you saved Marci’s life and that kinda means a lot to me and then ask you to bless our union and be my best man at the wedding.”

Adjusting his glasses, Matt did not look as touched as the mental picture Foggy had created warranted; he merely looked confused. “You want me to be your best man?”

Foggy studied him to be sure he was serious. He seemed serious. “Yes,” Foggy said deliberately. “You’re my best friend.”

“But…you have a brother.”

“Whom I love, but you’re my best friend _and_ you’re my partner _and_ Marci and I both owe you life debts, so.” Foggy shrugged as if the math added up perfectly. Which it did. “What do you say, buddy? I can still do the thing at the docks if you want, but that’ll have to wait until after the tux fitting thing.”

Matt hummed as if considering, but a smile was threatening to break out across his face. “Well, I did have plans to train Ella since our last session got interrupted, but—”

“Yeah, I have an objection to that,” Foggy announced. “When do I get training?”

If the best man thing threw him, the training thing stunned him. “What?”

“I just feel like I’m the only person in your life you haven’t offered to train. Do you not care if someone tries to kidnap me, or do you just assume I’m such a delightful person that nobody would dare?”

Matt raised his eyebrows, putting the ring in his pocket while his other hand came to rest at Foggy’s elbow as they started walking together. “I actually assume your—what d’you call them—fisticuffs of fury are more than adequate as a deterrence.”

“Very flattering.”

“I try.” Matt tilted his head. “Do you…actually want me to teach you?”

Foggy was about to say something sarcastic when he registered the way Matt’s head was angled slightly downwards—not held stiffly or defensively, not lifted cockily, but instead tipped in a way that Foggy recognized by now to mean that Matt was hopeful about something and trying not to show it. “Do you _want_ to teach me?”

“No,” Matt said quickly. “I want you to be able to protect yourself, but I understand that you still don’t really feel comfortable with…that.”

With that. In other words, with that part of him. Which Matt could easily translate to mean that Foggy wasn’t comfortable with _him_. Foggy sighed because he was _comfortable_ with Matt as a person and _appreciative_ of Matt as a vigilante, but Matt didn’t see the line between Matt-as-a-person and Matt-as-a-vigilante. “Look, man, all I want is to be able to fight for Marci and our future cat named Miranda. You know, like the Miranda—”

“I get it, Fogs.” He still looked a bit uncertain, but he didn’t let go of Foggy’s arm.

“Seriously, man. I wanna learn.”

“Okay,” Matt said simply, the tension in his hand relaxing…for, like, about a second before his eyes narrowed behind his glasses.

“What?” Foggy asked.

“Nothing. Just…Vanessa’s gallery is close by.”

“Can we burn it?” Foggy asked hopefully.

“No.”

“Can we get a small army of children, feed them caffeine, and let them loose on her favorite art?”

“You want to put children at risk?”

“A small _army_ of them, Matt.”

“No.”

“You’re no fun,” Foggy grumbled, shivering because maybe he was being dramatic, but he felt chilled even though they were still about a block away from the gallery. “In fact, you—ow, _geeze_ , dude.” Matt’s hand had suddenly clenched around Foggy’s elbow. Foggy glared at him, only to see Matt frozen, mouth open. “Buddy?”

“Damnit,” Matt gasped, and that was all the warning Foggy got before Matt dropped Foggy’s elbow like it was a hot coal, dropped his cane like it didn’t exist, and took off at a dead sprint in the opposite direction.

 

Matt

He ran faster, faster than he ever had in his life. Probably too fast for anyone to notice his glasses and think about what they might mean, but he didn’t care either way. At all.

He’d been keeping one ear trained on the gallery since it was in range. Not that he expected to hear anything useful, but he couldn’t help it. Vanessa was there, of course, because even though she was a thousand times more dangerous than Spiderman, her only charges were related to the distribution of an illicit substance and she was filthy rich. Bail had been easy for her.

Matt should’ve talked to Brett, should’ve leveraged everything he had to keep Vanessa locked up because then she wouldn’t be free to do whatever she wanted in her art gallery and then _Karen wouldn’t be there with her._

Blocking out people swearing and Foggy yelling, Matt focused on the deadly conversation occurring in the basement of the gallery.

“This wasn’t what we agreed,” Vanessa was saying.

Karen laughed a short, bitter laugh. “We didn’t _agree_ to anything.”

“I gave you an hour to go to your newspaper with—”

“I had my own idea instead.”

Matt shoved past pedestrians. Couldn’t they see this was an emergency? Why wouldn’t they _move?_

“Either way,” Vanessa said, “your time is almost up. Unless you can make a miracle happen in the next ten minutes.”

“And you’ll do what, exactly?” Karen challenged. “Unleash devil’s hell on more people I care about?”

Finally, an alley, and there was a fire escape just above a dumpster. He reached the roof in seven seconds flat. His glasses had fallen off somewhere. He didn’t stop.

“Yes,” Vanessa said simply. “I have plenty for you, too, since you’re standing there in front of me. You shouldn’t have come.”

“Do what you want to me,” Karen said flatly. “Leave Ella alone.”

Ella.

That explained why Karen had come. Matt flipped onto the next roof, shoulder-rolling on the landing to keep his momentum. He was going to _scream_ at her for this even though he would’ve done the same exact thing.

“Why?” Vanessa drawled. “What incentive do you possibly have to convince me to—oh.”

Matt was one building away, but he couldn’t tell what Karen did to cause that reaction.

“You don’t have cameras in here,” Karen murmured. “This is _your_ office, _your_ territory, and the last thing you want is video evidence of what you’ve been up to. Well. Guess that makes today my lucky day.”

Straining his hearing for the slightest extra hint of what was happening between them, Matt leapt onto the roof and instantly dropped to the ground in shock as a piercing siren filled the air. Matt’s eyes snapped closed as his senses sprang back to himself, inwards, shutting out the world in a reaction that was both instinct and the result of Stick’s training.

 _Acoustic reflex_ , Stick’s voice said gruffly in his head. _It’ll save your hearing but might get you killed. You wanna learn?_

 _Yes,_ he’d said without hesitation.

On his knees, eyes screwed up from pain, Matt tried to force his hearing outwards again, but he couldn’t hear Karen or Vanessa anymore. Could barely hear anything. He got unsteadily back to his feet, ears ringing almost as loudly as the siren, and felt for the edge of the roof with his foot. There was _probably_ a ledge below? No time to second-guess—he stepped over the edge, sliding down against the outer wall, stumbling as he hit a lower ledge feet-first with less than an inch to the spare on his left.

There was a window next to him, both locked and reinforced, and the room on the other side seemed empty. No one was shooting at him, anyway. Spreading his palm against the glass, he felt for the slightest weakness. The window itself was new, but the building wasn’t, and a small crack ran along the wall under the casing.

What did he have to work with? Nothing. He pulled out his office key, digging it into the tiny space while something warm and wet dripped down his neck. His ears were literally bleeding. Any other day that would’ve caused sheer terror, but knowing that Karen was down there and being unable to hear her was far worse. Touching his fingertips to the glass, he concentrated on feeling the slightest movement under the metal casing between the window and the wall as he dug his key deeper.

 _There._ A tiny shift in the casing that led to a tiny shift in the position of the glass.

He wedged the key in a different direction, smelled dust crumbling. If the key _broke_ ….

But his leverage was perfect and the wall cracked first. The casing dropped downwards by maybe a centimeter, warping the window almost imperceptibly. Holding the key point-first in his fist, he stabbed.

The glass shattered. A new alarm filled the air, and he couldn’t tell if it was actually quieter or if he just couldn’t hear anymore. Where was he, an office? Maybe? He found the door, scrabbled with the handle, and found himself in a hallway.

Down. He needed to get down and the ringing in his ears needed to stop. He turned to the right, moving silently (he _hoped_ ) down a corridor, telling himself that he was only feeling the wall with his fingertips for balance, not guidance.

But he was definitely using scent more than sound. Stairways and elevators always smelled just slightly stronger from the concentration of traffic through them. This had to be the right direction. Yes, he could feel fresher air, air that had traveled through a whole vertical shaft to reach him. He quickened his pace and clipped the doorframe with his shoulder for his trouble.

Down. Three steps was all it took for him to recognize the symmetry of the length between steps and he moved faster, stumbling on the landing, turning, and now taking the steps two at a time. The lower he went, the less the sirens wailed in his ears, but the ringing didn’t go away.

Karen, Karen, c’mon….

“Threaten me all you like,” Vanessa’s voice—distant, muted, distorted—caught in his hearing. “If you so much as graze me with a bullet, my husband will tell the world who was responsible for the murder of James Wesley.”

“I have good lawyers,” Karen answered. Her voice was shaking with something worse than fear: anger.

Someone was in the stairwell above him. Must not have noticed him.

“Is one little girl really worth all this?”

“It’s not just her. It’s everyone else you’ve hurt. But to stop you from killing her?” There was a _click_ as Karen thumbed back the hammer of her pistol. “Absolutely.”

Matt miscalculated at the bottom of the stairs and slammed into the wall. Keep moving, keep moving.

“What do you want?” Vanessa’s voice lowered until Matt could barely hear it. “Should we make a deal of our own?”

Karen laughed coldly. “It’d take us a week to cover all the loopholes we could think of. I want you to call off whatever you’re planning against Ella and I want you to escort yourself back to jail and plead guilty to whatever the DA throws at you.”

He was below ground now, he could tell by the temperature, in a long hallway with a door at the other end. He could smell the faintest hint of devil’s hell.

“And in return?” Vanessa murmured.

“In return, I don’t shoot your arm off.” Karen’s voice was close to Vanessa’s; they couldn’t be more than four feet apart.

He reached the door, and panic spiked through his brain when he found it locked. Without thinking, he threw his shoulder against the door, which did absolutely nothing except create a sound that caused Karen to gasp and the gun to go off.

But Karen’s aim must not have been at Vanessa because Matt couldn’t smell any blood despite Vanessa’s startled shriek. Karen thumbed the hammer back again— _click_ —and in the wake of the gunshot he heard two racing heartbeats. A drawer slid open and suddenly the scent of devil’s hell hung heavily in the air; a blade scrape over a surface as Vanessa drew out a poison-slicked knife.

It barely mattered how skilled she was with the weapon; all she had to do for the drug to take effect was draw blood. Vanessa took a step towards Karen and Matt snapped; he kicked the door inwards, triggering a sequence of events that took less than five seconds. The gun went off, Vanessa screamed as the bullet hit her shoulder but she didn’t drop the knife, _click_ , Vanessa lunged, and heat exploded through her chest an instant after Karen fired again.

Vanessa crumpled to the ground and the knife fell at Karen’s feet.

Matt stopped dead.

Karen was stuffing her gun back into her bag. She turned around, all but crashing into Matt. “We gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go!”

But Vanessa’s heart was still beating. “Wait, she’s—”

 “We gotta _go_ , Matt, _please_.” She was pushing him backwards. He could taste her fear.

“Karen, wait, she—” He broke off at the sudden quiet, holding Karen back at arm’s length, praying that his hearing was broken.

But no. He still could hear Karen’s heartbeat just fine.

 

Karen

“Matt, _c’mon_.” His face was bloodless and she knew why but didn’t want to think about it. She maneuvered him back through the doorway into the hall. Maybe the alarm upstairs had covered the gunshots, maybe no one else knew what just happened, but they couldn’t stay here.

Once outside of room, Matt gave his head a quick shake, and suddenly his hands were all over Karen. “You all right?”

“Keep going, don’t stop.” Didn’t he realize there wasn’t time for that? She reached the stairs and started climbing, but he tripped on the first step. “Matt?”

“Don’t stop,” he echoed back at her, and now he took the stairs two at a time, faster than she could climb, putting himself between her and whatever might come down to meet them. He pushed open a door at ground level but kept her from darting for the nearest exit, holding her firmly by the shoulders while his eyes narrowed in pained concentration. “Wait. Wait. Okay—now.”

She ducked out the door and onto the street. The siren was still wailing above them and she had no idea what it might mean, if it would call down police or fire or Vanessa’s own personal army. All she knew was that it was the perfect excuse to keep moving.

Matt started towards an alley as if on autopilot, but Karen wasn’t about to learn parkour and the rooftops was exactly where Vanessa’s people would look if they suspected Daredevil was involved, so she turned in the opposite direction. There was a public library just down the street—busy, lots of people. She headed towards it and didn’t really expect Matt to follow.

But he did.

He followed her down the sidewalk against the crowds and through the double sliding doors, sticking to her side like a shadow as she wound among the shelves towards the bathrooms. There was a larger unisex bathroom, unoccupied. She slipped inside, and still he followed. Her hands shook as she locked the door and turned around.

He was standing wide-eyed by the paper towel dispenser, breathing shallowly. The walls behind him were the color of eggshells. “You’re okay? You’re okay?” His voice wasn’t _loud_ , exactly, but he was definitely louder than normal.

“Matt, your ears.” She reached for paper towels, dampened them in the sink, and started dabbing at the blood on the side of his face and neck. “What happened?”

“S-s-siren. Karen, you…” He swallowed. “What happened?”

Karen focused all her attention on cleaning up the blood. “She had someone set up to go after Ella. That’s what she told me.”

“She told _you?_ ”

“She called me.” Her voice sounded small in her own ears. “While you and Foggy were out. Gave me an hour to do something impossible, said that was the only way to stop her from hurting Ella.” She threw the paper towels in the trash and hugged her arms around herself.

His eyes flickered over her face. “Why didn’t you call me?”

Karen took a deep breath and told him the truth. “Because you would’ve tried to stop me.”

Leaning forward, he rested his forehead against hers. “I’m sorry,” he breathed.

Sorry that she would think that, or sorry that it was true? Whatever the reason, there was so much sadness on his face that she couldn’t stand it. She closed her eyes. “No cameras in her office, but I need to get rid of my gun. The police—ballistics—if they think I’m a suspect—”

His arms wrapped around her.

“Only like two people saw me go in, and they were just random customers, so I don’t—I don’t think there’s any witnesses, but I don’t…” She tried to stop trembling, but leftover adrenaline still pulsed through her body. “Shit, she called me, the phone records—”

“Shh,” he murmured. “Breathe.”

Karen gulped in a breath and tried to wrench out of his grasp. Couldn’t, of course. “Matt, I don’t—I can’t—”

“Shh. I have you.”

“Matt, I k-k—” She clapped her hands to her mouth to stifle a sob.

Drawing her more tightly against himself, he breathed out slowly as she buried her face in his neck to try to muffle the horrible sounds she was making. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

She had no idea how long they stood there in that bathroom, but he never stopped holding her. She buried her fingers in his shirt and cried until there were no tears left, until she started shaking from exhaustion instead of adrenaline, until the reality of what just happened settled in, lodging in her chest, something heavy and suffocating.

Finally, finally, she pulled back, and though he didn’t let go, he allowed her to put some space between them. She felt cold where she'd been pressed against his body. “I’m sorry, Matt.”

“She was trying to kill you.”

“That’s an excuse,” Karen whispered.

He was still deathly pale in the harsh bathroom light.

“I went there hoping for an excuse.”

Now he nodded once, a small and fragile movement.

“She was hurting so many people, and she wasn’t gonna stop.”

“I know that.”

Now she twisted away, and he let her free herself without resistance. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I know how you—what you—what this means to you.”

His short exhale was almost a scoff. “To me? Karen, none of this is about me right now.”

That was nice to hear, but she didn’t believe it for a second because he couldn’t just _turn off_ the part of himself that hated murder, that grieved whenever a life was lost no matter how cruel a life it was. Closing her eyes again, she backed up against a cold white wall and just leaned against it, focusing on the chill seeping through her thin sleeves.

She wasn’t sure how long she stood there.

“You can leave,” she finally said.

He didn’t answer right away. “Is that what you want?”

No, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask him to stay. Turning her face into the wall, she sank her teeth into her lip.

“Karen…”

She remembered the red stain spreading across Vanessa’s pristine white dress. Karen’s hands weren’t stained, though; that was the beauty of a gun. But they should be.

Matt moved closer, not quite as soundless as normal. He didn’t touch her. “Sweetheart, please look at me.”

Why? So she could see the sadness again? Or maybe the reality was hitting him, too, and she’d look in his eyes and see horror. Disappointment. Rejection.

“Karen.”

His voice came from down lower now. What, was he on the ground? Curiosity forced her eyes open and she turned to see him on one knee on the bathroom floor right in front of her, fiddling with something in his hand. She dragged the word out of her chest: “What?”

“I love you,” he said clearly.

“…What?”

“I love you, and everything that just happened?” He blinked as his eyes moistened. “It doesn’t change that.”

Karen quickly stared up at the ceiling. “I went _looking_ for her.”

“It doesn’t change that,” he repeated.

It should.

He took a deep breath. “This…listen, this isn’t how I was gonna do it, but I want you to know that there’s nothing—nothing you could ever do to drive me away and I can’t think of a better way to prove that than to do this now. So.”

Then he hesitated.

She looked back down and her breath caught because there was something on his faced that absolutely didn’t belong right now. _Nervousness_.

And in his eyes there was something else, something she didn’t understand, something soft and full of the strength of his conviction.

“Karen,” he began slowly. “I’ve basically been in love with you since I met you, since I realized you’d risk your life to stop Union Allied and keep everyone else safe. But I couldn’t do anything about that because of all the lies. And then I just couldn’t wait anymore, and I almost ruined everything. I should’ve told you before taking you on a single date, but I was a coward, and I—” He swallowed. “I know I didn’t earn this second chance with you, but there’s nothing I could do that could ever earn it. It’s a gift. I know that. So…thank you, thank you for everything. And now…”

She pressed her hands to her mouth a second time, but for another reason entirely. She shook her head.

His eyes searched for hers. “I know this probably isn’t the best time for you to make, um, huge decisions and you don’t have to answer me right now. And I can do this again, later, better, if you want. I’m just…” Another deep breath. “I’m just telling you that I could never love you more than I do right now, because I already love you with everything I am. I’m giving you everything I’ve got. I’m yours. No matter what.”

Her hands were still on her mouth and her throat tightened. “Matt.”

“Karen, I wanna marry you.”

And his trembling hand unfolded to reveal a ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like...I don't even know. I planned this proposal about as well as Matt did, tbh.
> 
> Shoutout to DDLover for wondering what would happen if Karen had to shoot someone in front of Matt, you evil genius.


	23. How Real

Matt

She lowered herself to her knees in front of him. “Yes,” she breathed.

 _Yes,_ his heart sang, even while he stammered again that she didn’t have to say yes right now, that right now was probably not a good time to say yes, that he really shouldn’t have said anything but he just wanted her to know—

“ _Yes_ ,” she insisted.

He didn’t want to listen to heartbeats anymore, but he listened to hers just long enough to hear the truth of her words. “Okay,” he whispered. Turning her hand over, he brushed his fingers against hers and slipped on the ring.

She didn’t let go of his hand even after the ring was in place. “When did you get this?”

“Um. About an hour ago.”

She released a choked-back giggle. “It fits.”

“My abilities have some advantages.” He tensed at the sound of someone shouting outside, and her body became frozen steel. “Shh, it’s okay. Just someone yelling at a cab. We’re okay.” She couldn’t be comfortable, though. He shifted until he was sitting with his back to the wall and pulled her into his lap, arms around her, her head on his shoulder.

“How long do we stay here?”

He didn’t know. There wasn’t really a standard procedure for this kind of thing. “Another hour,” he suggested for no good reason, just trying to sound like he had some kind of plan. “Could you…” He readjusted their position enough that he could pull out his phone. “I need to tell Foggy and Marci to get somewhere safe. Do you want me to tell them why?”

Her voice hardened. “Might as well.”

For some reason, that hardness scared him almost as much as the threat now looming over them, but the more facts Foggy had, the safer he and Marci would be. Matt sent the text and immediately silenced his phone. “Turn your volume off.”

“I left my phone at the office, actually.”

Matt’s stomach dropped. “What.”

“I don’t know,” she said faintly. “I got paranoid.”

He closed his eyes, inhaling slowly. She was fine; she was alive; he’d found her and now she was here with him. Really, her decision to leave her phone behind was a minimal concern…except that it demonstrated, at best, reckless disregard for her own life. But that should probably not be addressed here on this bathroom floor. “Hey,” he whispered instead. “Wedding colors?”

“…What?”

“I mean, I don’t really have an opinion, but…”

“Are we actually having a ceremony?”

He leaned his cheek against the top of her head. “I always imagined getting married in the church when I thought about it at all, but we don’t have to.”

“We could do a destination wedding really, really far away. Like, in Ireland.”

He was pretty sure Fisk could still find them in Ireland and he was entirely sure they couldn’t afford a wedding there anyway, but he played along. “Ireland, huh? Is this your way of telling me you want our color scheme to be green?”

“Ew, no.”

“What’s wrong with green?”

“Nothing you’d understand.” She nestled herself a little closer into him. “So…I don’t have any bridesmaids.”

His legs were steadily going numb under her weight. “You don’t?” True, he didn’t know of any friends of hers here in New York, but her life had been insanely hectic since moving to the city, so that was at least understandable. “No one from Vermont?”

She didn’t answer immediately. “I didn’t have a lot of time for friends,” she said at last, “and I didn’t really have anything in common with the people back there.”

He could definitely relate. At the same time, he had pretty good reasons for his childhood friendlessness, but he couldn’t imagine why a young Karen Page wouldn’t have a gaggle of girlfriends or however that worked. He resolved to ask her more about that later. For now, he kept his voice light and conversational. “Well, I only have one groomsman.”

“You mean Stone?” she suggested, leaning back against him.

He made a face.

“Brett,” she offered.

“No.”

“Spiderman.”

He huffed a laugh against her neck.

“Well, you can’t have Foggy,” she announced. “I need him to be my man of honor.”

Her what, now? “That’s a thing?” he asked.

“How many weddings have you been to?”

“In recent memory?” He tightened his arms around her. “I’d rather not split Foggy in half. You can have him.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Or…we could not have anyone. I mean, we’ll invite everyone, but we don’t have to organize a wedding party. It’d be simpler. Just us.”

“I’d like that,” he admitted, and not only because he didn’t have the first clue how to put together a wedding party and really didn’t want to worry about figuring that out right now.

She fell quiet again, but it wasn’t peaceful. Her breathing was too shallow and she flinched at every sound outside, even though half his attention was focused on trying to hear everything that was happening in the library and he would certainly notice something wrong before she did.

Well, his hearing wasn’t _great_ at the moment, and he was trying not to think about what damage that siren might have done. But the point was that she wasn’t calming down. Especially when Matt’s phone vibrated, and they could both feel it.

“You gotta answer,” she said.

He shook his head. “Not important right now.”

“It could be Foggy.”

“Foggy can wait.” He’d texted Foggy the important facts; the last thing he wanted was to force Karen to listen to a one-sided conversation about what she’d done. Or maybe Foggy would ask to talk to her, but what if Karen wasn’t ready?

“He must be freaking out.”

Foggy was definitely freaking out, but when Karen didn’t force Matt to call Foggy back once the vibrations ended, he assumed he’d made the right decision. For now, it seemed better for Karen to limit her world to this single bathroom, this tiny bubble of relative peace.

“When are we doing this?” Matt asked, interrupting the tense silence. “The wedding, I mean. If we’re not worrying about a giant ceremony…” Which was not safe right now, anyway. Maybe they could have an actual celebration when— _if_ —when the threat of Fisk was…removed. “We could do it sooner,” he pointed out. “Rather than later.”

It didn’t quite work; she was still as tense as a rubber band stretched to the breaking point. But she seemed to make an effort to steady her breathing, like she could tell what he was trying to do and was determined to achieve the result he was after. “I’d like that,” she said.

They remained like that for several more minutes, and her muscles were finally relaxing when he caught a siren in the distance. She stiffened a second later, soon enough to tell him that his ears still weren’t fully functional.

“Someone found her,” Karen whispered.

The sirens wailed past them. “Maybe not,” he remarked. “There’s a thousand reasons for sirens in this city.”

“Someone found her,” she argued.

Closing his eyes, he pressed his lips to her temple. “Maybe they did. But we’re okay. We’re okay.”

 

Karen

They ended up staying until the library closed. Maybe whatever he was hearing out on the street was a reason to stay in hiding, or maybe he just felt like she did and didn’t want to venture outside, like setting foot on a sidewalk in view of the gallery would make everything real. By the time they finally slunk out onto the street to stay in a cheap motel, it was dark enough that Karen could pretend the gallery didn’t exist.

If Matt hated the smell of their motel room, which he must, he didn’t show it. She didn’t expect him to leave her alone for more than a second, and she was right. She showered (and showered, and showed, and showered) and then they curled up together to try to sleep, but he kept himself between her and the door. When she jerked awake in the middle of the night, gasping for breath after Fisk shot her through the heart in a nightmare, he stayed up with her and massaged the tension out of her back until she fell back into restless sleep.

When she woke the next morning, it was to Matt’s voice carrying on a hushed conversation. She slitted her eyes open. “Just for a few days, Fogs—I know. I’m sorry. Listen, it’s not—no, I know.” His voice sharpened. “She said Vanessa was threatening Ella, all right? I don’t—I said, I don’t know all the details yet.” He tipped his head back in frustration. “She’s sleeping right now, so no. You can wait.”

Karen had been careful not to move, but since when had that kept him from realizing when she was awake?

“I already thought of that,” Matt snapped into the phone. “But Fisk might not even know what happened yet, it’s not like he has every dirty agent at his beck and call anymore. We don’t—it’s not—slow down, it’s not like—” He broke off for about a minute before growling into the phone, “You think _any_ of us asked for this?”

Sure seemed like Karen had.

“I’ve gotta go,” Matt said abruptly. “Stay safe, Fogs.” Lowering the phone, he stood for a moment in the center of the room with his head bowed, very still. He ran a hand through his hair, rubbed the back of his neck, then stuck his phone into his pocket and came to sit on the edge of the bed. “I know you’re awake,” he murmured.

She pulled the stiff, ugly purple comforter back up to her chin. “Is Foggy okay?”

“Yeah. He and Marci will be staying somewhere like this for the next couple of days.” He waved a hand as if to reference their motel room. “After that, though…”

It wasn’t like this lifestyle was sustainable. She chewed on her lip. If she hadn’t gone to Vanessa, if she’d taken just a _second_ to think through any other possible option…but no, she’d been so scared for Ella and mostly so furious that Vanessa thought she could get away with whatever she wanted that Karen hadn’t thought much at all. And what if that was exactly what Vanessa wanted? To call with a taunt, to ignite Karen’s emotions until she made a mistake? Well, _that_ plan backfired on both of them. Both Vanessa and their only leverage against Fisk were dead. So.

And it would be one thing if it was just Karen’s problem to deal with, but it wasn’t. In other circumstances, maybe Karen would laugh at the thought of Marci Stahl stuck in a motel room. Not anymore, not because of _this_.

Then she looked at the man sitting in front of her, drinking in the sight of him. If there’d ever been a moment for him to walk away, it would’ve been in that stupid bathroom. But he hadn’t. A calmer feeling held the anxiety tightening her chest at bay because at least one thing in the world was certain right now.

She fiddled with the new ring, twisting it around and around her finger. It was  _perfect_ , and she suspected Foggy's involvement. “After that?” she asked.

“We’ll figure something out,” he said with all the confidence of a man who had never in his life successfully figured something out. “I reached out to Brett so he understands the threat. But it won’t be like last time, since the FBI will want to prove that Fisk can’t play them again. He won’t be getting out of prison any time soon, and his assets are frozen—largely thanks to your investigation, by the way.”

Fisk would still think of something, he always did. They were slowing him down, that was all.

Sitting up, she pushed her hair out of her face. “Did you get any sleep at all last night?”

He gave a wry smile. “Not so much. You hungry?”

“I don’t think I could eat right now if I tried.” His eyes narrowed, like he was sensing her appetite or something, so she hurried to cut him off. “If you force me to eat something, I promise I’ll throw up on you.”

He tried to make a disgusted face, but there was too much concern in his unseeing eyes for him to quite pull it off. She sighed as if to bury the warmth spreading through her chest at the sight of it, unable to decide whether she should accept it.

Slowly, he reached out to set his hand over hers, tracing a pattern along her knuckles. “I was thinking about your dad.”

Oh. _She_ hadn’t been. Like she needed more proof that Matt Murdock was, at his core, a better person than she was.

“He won’t be safe in Vermont. Fisk probably already knows where he is. What do you…what do you think we should do about that?”

We. She stared at the wall over his shoulder, counting the weird streaks in the beige paint. “He’d be safer in Hell’s Kitchen, wouldn’t he?” she asked reluctantly.

Matt didn’t immediately answer, which she appreciated. “Well,” he began, clearly choosing his words carefully, “Hell’s Kitchen is kind of ground zero for vigilantes, so…”

She felt a small smile on her lips despite herself. “Any vigilantes in particular?”

“If you can get him to come here, I’ll keep your dad safe,” he promised. “If that’s what you want.”

She dragged her gaze from the wall over to look at him, taking in the circles under his eyes and the determined lines between his eyebrows. “It’s not like you won’t have enough people to protect.”

He just shrugged. “I’ll do my best.”

Of course he would, and she couldn’t pretend that she wouldn’t feel better knowing that Fisk would have to go through Matt to get to what was left of her family. “As for getting him here, my dad might be interested in coming to Hell’s Kitchen for a wedding in the next few days…”

In a flash, his expression switched to boyish excitement. “Yeah? Next few days, huh?”

“ _You_ were the one who wanted to do it sooner than later.”

“Yeah.” He leaned forward to peck her forehead, and if she closed her eyes she could pretend they were just flirting in her bedroom or something. “I do.”

For a moment, she let herself enjoy his touch, his obvious concern. Then she pulled back. “Who else?”

He didn’t have to ask what she meant. “Peter. It won’t be hard for Fisk to connect Spiderman to Vanessa’s arrest.”

“He’s gonna want to get involved.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Matt said firmly.

Karen wasn’t convinced that would make much of a difference. “Talk to his aunt.”

He raised his eyebrows approvingly. “Noted.” Then he hesitated, eyes flitting around her face, starting to chew on his lip until he apparently caught himself. “D’you…d’you think he knows about my mom?”

Karen’s heart dropped into her stomach. “Could he?”

“Her legal name is still Murdock, even if no one calls her that anymore.” His mouth twisted with bitterness. “Anyone who dug in the right places would figure out who she is.”

If only he’d known to dig, he could’ve found her years ago. Karen searched for something calm and simple to say. “So we have to get her somewhere safe, too.”

“What am I supposed to do, Karen? Lock all of you up in a basement somewhere until Fisk promises he’ll leave you alone?” He must have to realized how that sounded because he dropped his gaze towards the floor. “Sorry. I didn’t…I didn’t mean it like that.”

Today of all days, he didn’t have anything to apologize for.

“What about Ella?” Karen asked tentatively. “Vanessa threatened her directly. If Fisk tries to make good on that threat…”

Pulling his phone from his pocket, Matt started turning it over and over between his hands. “I already texted Micah,” he admitted a moment later. “But I guess he was asleep or something, so…I don’t know how he’ll take this.”

Stabbing guilt arched through her heart. “He won’t blame you, Matt.”

Matt was back to chewing on his lip. “Yeah. Well.”

Because Micah should absolutely blame Karen for Fisk’s rage, but it was certainly not Karen’s fault that Ella had been on Vanessa’s radar in the first place. “You didn’t know this would happen.”

“I knew that deal with Fisk would just keep getting more lopsided in Fisk’s favor the more people I—” He cut himself off, angling his head away like that could hide how his upper lip curled in disgust. “He had _one_ weak link. One.”

Shoving aside her indignation with being implicitly referred to as a weak link, she shook her head. “I’m the one who ruined that deal, and I _knew_ how important Vanessa was when I went to see her.”

He lifted his head like it was something heavy. “Then why did you?”

It was a fair question that she would absolutely have asked him if their positions were reversed. She clenched her jaw. “I told you. She threatened Ella. I was scared and I was angry and you’re right, I should’ve called you, I just…” She’d just wanted to be done dealing with her, but she couldn’t say that. Not right now, not out loud, not to him, not in the wake of the danger she’d brought to everyone that either of them cared about.

He gave a tiny wave of his hand, a gesture she recognized from that basement when she’d apologized for confirming Fisk’s suspicions about him. His way of telling her he wasn’t holding it against her, or something like it.

Okay. This whole situation was a mess, but they were together and they could _handle_ this. Scooting closer, Karen started to rest her head on his shoulder, but he flinched as his phone vibrated, its robotic voice chanting Micah’s name.

“What time is it?” Matt’s voice was pitched a bit too high as he fumbled the phone.

She glanced at the clock. “Like, eight in the morning.”

Swearing under his breath, Matt started to get up. “I’ll just take this outside.”

She grabbed his arm. “I can handle it. Put it on speaker.”

“Not if you’re going to pretend none of this is my fault,” he argued.

Hissing in exasperation, she took the phone from his hands (vigilante reflexes were no match for her frustration), answered it, and hit the button to put it on speaker.

“Matt?” Micah asked.

Already wearing a guilty expression, Matt sat back down beside her. “I guess you got my text.”

“What exactly should I be concerned about right now?” Micah demanded.

In an instant, Matt took on another persona: he sat up straighter, set his shoulders back, and rapidly explained that Vanessa threatened to harm Ella, but Karen prevented the harm by meeting Vanessa face-to-face, which resulted in Vanessa’s death. Both his words and his tone were clinical and precise, and Karen felt a newfound appreciation for why he was so effective as a defense lawyer.

Oddly, it seemed to calm Micah down as well. A little. “What does this mean?”

“It means that once Fisk realizes what happened to Vanessa, he’ll start moving against me, which I hope will be my problem to deal with, except that Fisk has a history of trying to use others to get to me. I can’t be sure that this will involve Ella, especially because we don’t know if Vanessa ever had the chance to share her plan with Fisk. But there’s a risk.”

“All right,” Micah said slowly, in a tone that sounded like he was planning on panicking as soon as he set the phone down. “What do we do?”

Matt’s eyes darted towards Karen as if asking for help, so she leaned forward to speak into the phone. “Hi, Mr. Vallier, I’m Karen. We don’t know for sure that Fisk will go against your family and we definitely don’t know when. Since we don’t know how long this might last, you might not want to rely on a plan that’ll disrupt Ella too much, and whatever you do needs to not be traceable back to you. But I was thinking…her biological mother is still around, isn’t she?”

There was a moment of silence on the other end. Karen glanced questioningly at Matt, who was staring towards her like she'd solved all of New York's public transportation problems in one go.

“Elizabeth Conway,” Micah said at last. “Ella still sees her once in a while.”

“If Fisk knows about Ella because of your involvement with her lawyers," Karen explained, "it would make zero sense to Fisk to look for her at the very place Nelson and Murdock tried to rescue her from. If Ella stayed with her for a while, she’d still be in the same town, she’d still be able to see you, but she wouldn’t be as easy to find.” Except that Elizabeth was neglectful; that was why Ella was no longer with her. Karen twisted a strand of hair around her finger. “I don’t know. It’s a thought.”

 “I don’t like it,” Micah muttered. “I have vacation time. We could go to Disneyland or something.”

“If she stays in Hell’s Kitchen,” Matt pointed out quietly, “I’ll be able to look out for her.”

“And if you take her somewhere else, Fisk might be able to track it,” Karen added.

Micah heaved a sigh into the phone. “All right. I’ll talk to Maeva about it. And what about the two of you? Are you safe?”

Karen blinked, glancing first at the sparse motel room and then at Matt’s surprised expression.

“Uh, yeah,” Matt said blankly. “Nothing we haven’t seen before.”

Since he couldn’t see her eyebrows raised incredulously, Karen settled for a quiet scoff.

“If you need anything,” Micah began.

“Don’t worry about us,” Matt said quickly.

Micah made a disagreeing humming sound, but didn’t argue. “I’ll check back in once Maeva and I decide what to do for Ella. Thank you for the warning.”

Once he hung up, Matt shot a perplexed look at Karen. “They keep doing that.”

"Doing what?" she asked innocently. "Offering help? Almost like friendship is a two-way street or something.”

His eyes narrowed, but whatever he was about to say was interrupted by a yawn.

Taking his phone carefully out of his hands, she set it on the bedside table and pulled him down among the pillows. “Rest for a second with me?”

“Sure,” he said without relaxing at all. At her quiet noise of skepticism, he sighed and rolled over onto his back. “I still…I can’t hear like I should. So it’s…” His head twitched towards the door. “Hard to relax when I don’t know what’s coming.”

Curling up beside him, she acted like she was soothing him instead of comforting herself. “Nothing’s coming. Not even Fisk can move that fast. He might not even know what happened yet.”

“Yeah, I keep telling myself that, but…”

“Focus on me,” she said softly. “Listen to my heartbeat.”

To her surprise, he stiffened at those words.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly.

It was so obviously a lie that the least she could do, after all he’d done for her, was pretend to believe it.

 

Fisk

The white walls of the prison could not contain him, but they represented the one thing, the one _person_ , that could. Sitting on the bed, he rubbed a course portion of the bedsheet between his fingers, grounding himself in this reality.

Learning of her arrest had been…challenging. There was precious little he could do; he had so few resources left, and although he despised the thought of Vanessa enduring the abuse that New York’s legal system would undoubtably turn against her, he also knew that he had to reserve his resources for the direst moment.

He also had to have faith in her. Vanessa could protect herself, he knew. But sitting here in this white room, allowing her to endure the criminal proceedings alone…it felt like failure.

Wilson’s hand clenched into a fist around the bedsheet. Murdock hadn’t even tried to be subtle.

Or had he? Perhaps that was the voice of paranoia. Murdock had been behind both of Wilson’s arrests, either in his attorney mask or his vigilante mask, but that was not sufficient proof that Murdock was a boogeyman intent on haunting Wilson for as long as they both lived.

After all, as much as the fact caused him anxiety, Vanessa was more than capable of creating problems all on her own. Wilson felt a quiet thrill of pride.

But if Murdock was _not_ responsible for Vanessa’s arrest, that meant that Wilson could not dare release his frustration on Karen Page or Franklin Nelson, lest he be the first to break the truce and thereby invite Murdock to unleash the full extent of his legal prowess against Vanessa.

Blinking, Wilson focused anew on the wall, mapping a world of connections onto the smooth surface. Matthew Murdock to Karen Page to her worthless father in Vermont. Matthew Murdock to Franklin Nelson to Franklin Nelson’s inbred family. And what about Seema and Sami Nadeem? Would Murdock not be devastated if something happened to either of them after the effort he’d invested in keeping them alive?

Of course, there was also the other enhanced vigilante, the one calling himself Spiderman. He and Murdock had both interfered with Vanessa’s distribution. Did that mean they were working together, or merely working towards the same end? Regardless, Wilson would have to tell Donovan to keep an eye on Spiderman.

And perhaps there were others. Perhaps Murdock had gotten careless with Wilson’s imprisonment, arrogant enough in his contrived victory to draw more individuals into his orbit, each one a vulnerability. Wilson finally unclenched his hand around the blanket.

He’d request a meeting with his attorney, and he’d instruct Donovan to find as many weaknesses as possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Matt gets, like, 0/10 on big romantic gestures, but I hope a chapter that's 90% Matt and Karen taking care of each other in lots of tiny ways makes up for it a bit.
> 
> As to why Maggie is still a Murdock...first, she's still a Murdock in the comics, so I'm going off that. Second, I think she would've felt that abandoning her family was bad enough (y'know, Catholic-wise) without adding a literal divorce. Third, I just want her to be a Murdock, okay?
> 
> Shout-out to let_tyrants_fear for wanting more of Karen and her dad!


	24. Ridiculous Grace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have a last bit of fluff. Heads-up: marriage and Catholic stuff.

Peter

Peter acted like everything was fine. Because everything _was_ fine. In the grand scheme of things, this really didn’t matter at all. It wouldn’t ruin his chances at getting into the best colleges, it wouldn’t ruin his friendship with Ned, and it…it _probably_ wouldn’t ruin his friendship with Michelle. She’d actually been really matter-of-fact when she told him she’d had to cut him from the decathlon team.

And he couldn’t blame her. Between the stunt he’d pulled in D.C. and missing half their practices this semester because he’d been in _jail_ …yeah, he wasn’t exactly a reliable teammate right now. And it wasn’t like he could explain away his absences.

“I’m not mad,” she’d said when she’d cornered him just after school let out. “Ned told me you’re dealing with ‘stuff’ right now.” She raised her eyebrows, in case he missed the silent quotation marks.

Peter instantly resolved to spend at least four hours scouring the internet for that obscure piece Ned needed for his LEGO Star Wars _Slave I_ ship just to make it up to him. “Yeah. I’m sorry I couldn’t have told you ahead of time, but I…I _really_ couldn’t have.”

“Sure, Peter.” She didn’t sound like she believed him, but she also sounded like she thought his real excuse was probably legit underneath. Or maybe he was just reading into things. “Lemme know when your life gets normal again.”

And _that_ felt like someone dumped a bucket of ice water over him while simultaneously lighting his intestines on fire. Peter had stammered something and basically fled the scene, because that sounded like she maybe kind of wanted to be around him—when he wasn’t Spiderman.

Or…at least when he wasn’t getting arrested. Which…fair.

But _still_.

He could call Matt. Except Matt was like Peter. In fact, something told Peter that Matt was pretty used to this kind of thing happening. What Peter _really_ needed was someone on the other side of the line. Someone normal. Someone who could tell him what Michelle was thinking. Not Ned; Ned was just a kid.

He took off down the sidewalk and, once he was out of hearing range of the school, pulled out his phone and called his other lawyer.

“Peter?” Mr. Nelson answered anxiously. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Peter said hurriedly, not even wanting to know what conclusions Mr. Nelson might have jumped to. “Totally fine. I was just wondering, though, if maybe…” He should’ve thought through how he was actually supposed to ask for this. “I need some advice.”

“And you called me?” Mr. Nelson sounded understandably confused.

“Yeah, about…about how to, um, you know…fix something. That might have gotten kind of messed up while I was in prison.”

“School?” Mr. Nelson demanded. “Family? What?”

Okay, everything he was thinking of was obviously way more serious than the insignificant crisis Peter was actually dealing with. “My friend kicked me off our decathlon team because I missed all the practices.”

Mr. Nelson got quiet.

Feeling himself flush, Peter gritted his teeth. “Forget it, I know, it’s stupid, I just—”

“Matt and Karen said your friend knows all about Spiderman,” Mr. Nelson said. “What’s his name? Ned?”

“This…this isn’t Ned,” Peter admitted begrudgingly.

Mr. Nelson waited a beat, like he was expecting Peter to clarify on his own. “Who?”

“Her name’s Michelle,” Peter squeaked.

“ _Oh_ ,” Mr. Nelson said knowingly.

Yeah, calling like this was a bad idea. “It doesn’t really matter,” Peter started babbling. “Sorry to bother you, I’ll just—”

“Peter,” Mr. Nelson interrupted. “Did Matt invite you to the…the thing this weekend?”

“Uh, the wedding?” Peter asked doubtfully. “Yeah.”

“Okay, good.” Mr. Nelson sounded relieved, probably that he wouldn’t have to lie about going to his best friend’s wedding just in case Matt hadn’t thought to invite his weird teenaged vigilante friend. Honestly, Peter was still really surprised that Matt _had_ invited his weird, teenaged vigilante friend.

It just…it felt nice to be included in something so personal, you know? Shut up.

“So, obviously I’m gonna be really busy until then,” Mr. Nelson went on, “but afterwards, do you wanna meet up? Believe me, I can tell you everything you need to know about superheroing interfering with your, uh, personal life.”

Peter really hoped he was imagining the double entendre. “It’s not like that, it’s just—”

“You called for my help, right?”

“…Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll see you on Monday after school. I know every good coffee shop in Hell’s Kitchen, so we’ll be all set. I’ll text you when I choose the perfect one.”

“Uh…thank you.” And after Mr. Nelson said goodbye and hung up, Peter couldn’t ignore the way it felt like he could breathe just a bit easier.

 

Karen

They were officially moved in together; her stuff was tucked away in his impeccably organized apartment and her place was just waiting on renters. It was weird, going from living alone to sharing a place with Matt and a dog.

But it was really, really nice.

Now, for instance. Waking up to sunlight streaming through his beautiful bedroom window, Frank’s warm body curled up at Karen’s feet among the silk sheets, and the smell of whatever Matt was making for breakfast wafting in from the kitchen. A few days ago, they’d both calmed down enough to leave that cramped motel. Matt insisted that he felt that they were safer in his apartment: the roof access meant they weren’t trapped, for one thing, and his familiarity with everyone in his building meant he could better pinpoint an intruder, for another. Honestly, she just figured that it would take Fisk less than half an hour of extra hunting to find them in a motel rather than in Matt’s apartment, and that extra half hour didn’t justify the tension that came from hiding out in a tiny, gross room that didn’t belong to them.

So here they were, pretending that everything was normal. Or, at least, pretending that any abnormality came solely from the fact that this was the morning of their wedding day.

 _Wedding_ day. She curled her toes happily.

The door opened and Matt entered almost soundlessly, wearing nothing but sweatpants and bearing a tray. “Good morning,” he said in a voice that somehow made her think of a cat purring.

She sat up. “Today’s special enough without you doing all of this.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Special? Is something special happening today, Miss Page?”

He’d only be calling her that for a few more hours. Well, technically, it would still be several weeks before she could update her social security card, driver’s license, and other documents with her new name; it was a bit of a daunting process. But that wasn’t about to stop her from answering solely to Matt’s name after tonight.

Smirking, he set the tray on the bed and sat down across from her, only to frown quizzically when she didn’t immediately reach for the blueberry muffins. “Not hungry?”

Ugh. Now that the food was in front of her, the last thing she wanted was to eat any of it. She shook her head apologetically. “Sorry.”

His eyes narrowed as he stretched forward to test her forehead. “Sick?”

“Just nervous, maybe.”

“Nervous?” Now he was grinning. “Why? Afraid all this…” He gestured dramatically at himself, “is too good to be true?”

Snorting, she threw a pillow at him; he caught it and quickly set both the pillow and the tray on the floor beside the bed.

“Excited,” she amended.

If anything, he looked even more pleased with himself.

“I have a stipulation,” she said before he could get too cocky.

He cocked his head, enthusiastic in the way only a lawyer could get over hearing the word _stipulation_.

“I really hope I don’t have to spell this out, but just to be clear, tonight is _ours_. No Daredeviling.”

“Done,” he said immediately.

“I have another stipulation.”

“If it’s anything like the first, I already agree.”

She enunciated clearly. “No punching things. I don’t care what you hear between now and our wedding, I don’t care if you want to get _your_ nervous energy out of your system at the gym. I want your hands to look pretty for all the pictures of your ring.”

“Done,” he agreed, albeit slightly less enthusiastically. “Not like I can hear all the trouble out there anyway.”

She frowned. “Hearing’s not any better? What did Claire say?”

He averted his eyes. Claire, Karen imagined, had said plenty about him getting himself thoughtlessly into trouble, and he, Karen was sure, had said nothing about how his ruptured eardrums hadn’t been his fault at all. “The tear should heal up on its own in a few weeks. No need for surgery, at least.”

Karen fiddled with a strand of her hair. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” he said simply. “It was worth it.”

Sap. “Come here.” She pulled him closer, breakfast in bed forgotten. There were much better ways to spend the morning.

 

Matt

He was hovering in a small room by the front of the church, usually where people waited for baptisms and that kind of thing, but also where grooms waited so they could slip unobtrusively onto the chancel for the ceremony. He kept straining his hearing; he couldn’t hear Karen in the basement, like he should be able to, but he could hear Foggy keeping up a stream of commentary on all the guests filing into the church.

He was so focused on testing his new limits that he jumped when a new voice spoke right next to him. “How are you?” Father Driscoll asked.

Clearing his throat, Matt turned to politely face Father Lantom’s replacement. They’d met before and made small talk, but it…hurt. Driscoll wasn’t Lantom, although it was unfair to hold that against him. “I’m well,” Matt answered stiffly.

Driscoll rubbed his shoulder in a gesture that felt too familiar for two strangers. “It’s good to be nervous. It’s proof that this matters to you.”

For all the ribbing he’d given Karen earlier, Matt _was_ nervous, and he didn’t really appreciate the reminder that literally anyone who looked at him would be able to tell. “I’m excited.”

“That’s probably for the best, too,” Driscoll remarked.

Despite himself, Matt felt a smile flash across his face at that.

“I’m sorry it has to be me,” Driscoll said suddenly.

Matt blinked behind his glasses. “What’s that?”

“Someone you don’t know, rather than…” Driscoll trailed off, like he found it as difficult to say Father Lantom’s name out loud as Matt did.

“You speak for God,” Matt said quietly, “and I assume your God is the same as his. Thank you for doing this on such short notice.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Driscoll said. Truth. He rubbed Matt’s shoulder again, a gesture slightly more welcoming this time. “Are you ready?”

Nodding, Matt accepted the offered arm and allowed Father Driscoll to lead him into position at the front of the church. It was either that, or awkwardly bring his cane. Matt could practically feel the parishioners’ eyes on him, but that was fine. Everyone would be looking at Karen soon enough. Matt, meanwhile, could distract himself by listening to Foggy’s narrations of the guests.

“And this one woman is wearing this really horrible purple-gray dress,” Foggy was muttering as if to himself.

Horrible because it was purple-gray?

“It’s got puffed sleeves, Matt. _Puffed sleeves_ bigger than my face.”

Ah. Horrible.

“And—oh, hey, Claire just got here. And she’s not wearing scrubs! She’s talking to some nice old lady in the back who, uh…recognizes her, I think?”

Matt could hear that conversation, too. Claire was expertly falling into a particular language unique to polite church attendees.

“Aww, the Valliers showed up,” Foggy announced. “Matt, Ella is the cutest. She has a _ribbon_ in her hair. Sweet, summer child. Oh, she saw you, hang on—”

Yeah, Matt heard her take two rapid steps in his direction before Micah grabbed Ella’s arm to keep her from running all the way up to the front of the church. Grinning, Matt gave a small wave.

“Hi, Matt!” she yelled, triggering Maeva to crouch down and whisper fiercely about inside voices.

“Incoming,” Foggy reported suddenly. “Stone’s here. He’s wearing that same suit Karen picked out for him and—what am I looking at, Matt. What is this.”

Matt waited patiently for more details.

“He cut his hair. Not, like, a lot. But enough to look kind of normal. Do you get what this means, Matt? He either…I don’t know, googled how to do it or got an actual haircut from actual human beings. Probably with actual money. And he had such great hair, Matt, seriously. I can’t believe this. I feel like I’m looking at someone who sold his soul.”

Matt wanted to point out that it was a bit rich of Foggy to make such a big deal about this when Foggy had committed the same sin. He heard Claire’s breath catch in surprise as she noticed Stone, heard her walk over to confront him.

This should be interesting. Matt tuned Foggy out for the moment.

“Matt invited you?” Claire asked in greeting.

“I’m a friend,” Stone answered, a bit stiffly, like the word was foreign.

Matt wasn’t exactly sure he’d use that word, but it was oddly encouraging to hear Stone try.

“If you say so.” Claire crossed her arms, rubbing her hands over her skin, hair brushing the fabric of her dress as she glanced around. “You have a place to sit?” Stone must have shaken his head (harder to tell from a distance, especially because Foggy was right; Stone _had_ cut his hair) because she spoke again. “Come sit with me, then, and save me from the nosy church ladies.”

Stone followed her. His hand kept rubbing against his leg; Matt could hear a blade scraping beneath the material of his pants. Given the risk they were taking, given how public this was, Matt couldn’t help but feel thankful that Stone was the kind of person to bring a weapon to a wedding.

“Are you staying for the reception?” Claire asked him.

“Not likely. The only person I would talk to is the other lawyer.”

“He’s a good conversationalist,” Claire offered.

Stone ignored this. “Are you staying?”

“Nope. Gotta get back to work.”

Stone’s accent was just slightly stronger as he asked, “And where do you work?”

Matt raised his eyebrows to himself, wondering how much effort it had taken Stick to drill the accent out of him.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Claire muttered.

“Perhaps I’d just like to know if I’ll see you again outside of keeping Matty from bl—” There was a low grunt, probably the result of Claire elbowing him. Matt was all too familiar with the feeling.

“Until Matt gets actual common sense knocked into him, that’ll be every other week. Seems good enough to me, wouldn’t you say, Mario?”

Uh, Mario?

“Emiliano,” Stone corrected quietly.

Matt rolled his eyes. His own voice, nervous and serious and stammering, echoed in his head with the memory of the smell of her blood shed because of him. _Matthew, my name is Matthew._

Oh, Stone was in for it. Stone was also liable to just track Claire to her hospital, if he wanted. Matt would have to keep an eye on the situation.

Suddenly, Matt’s attention was pulled away from Stone and Claire to the door of the church. Someone else had stepped inside, someone Foggy wouldn’t recognize to mention. Matt barely recognized him, either, except that he smelled ever so distantly like Karen.

Her father.

Matt listened intently as Paxton Page shuffled into an empty seat towards the back. He’d been infuriatingly noncommittal when Karen reached out to invite him and Matt hadn’t really been expecting him to show up. In all honesty, Matt had kind of hoped he wouldn’t. But Paxton had come to Hell’s Kitchen after all, and as long as he lingered, Matt would keep him safe with only mild complaining to Foggy, where Karen couldn’t hear.

Speaking of Foggy. “Brace yourself, Murdock,” he whispered gleefully. “It’s time.”

His heart started thumping wildly in his chest as every head in the room turned towards the back where Karen was emerging from a back room. Her dress was a thin material that hung in layers, amplifying her every graceful movement. She wore flats so he would be taller, and her steps were almost shy. Her hair was up—he couldn’t hear it brushing over her shoulders—but earrings dangled along her neck, tinkling musically as her head turned. She also wore a bracelet, just a single bracelet, some kind of intricate design wrapping around her wrist. It was the most subtle sound; he had to concentrate to hear it moving against her skin.

Her footsteps faltered ever so slightly as she passed the row where her dad was sitting. And he realized, quite suddenly, that if he ever had a daughter, and that daughter ever wanted a wedding like this, Matt wanted her to want him to walk her down the aisle. At the exact same time, it also occurred to him that if he wasn’t careful, he might not be around to walk with her even if she wanted it.

He shoved those thoughts from his mind. _Focus._

Karen reached the front and slipped her hand into his. Her skin was always so much softer, but today it was like silk. They turned together to face the priest, who raised a hand towards the congregation.

“God’s chosen people,” he began, “made holy and dearly loved, welcome to the union of Matthew Murdock and Karen Page.” He lowered his hand, now addressing Matt and Karen together. “Dearly beloved, you have gathered here so that in the presence of this church family your intention to enter into marriage may be strengthened by the Lord with a sacred seal. May God’s love be poured into your hearts through His Holy Spirit so that you may have strength to be faithful to each other for ever, as Christ is faithful to the church in keeping His covenant of love with us.” His voice softened. “For there is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear.”

Father Lantom should be here. He would’ve been so proud. Matt would’ve told him that he wasn’t afraid. Or…yes, actually, he was. But he wasn’t enslaved to fear, not anymore. Love was stronger.

“All this comes from the Lord Almighty,” Father Driscoll went on, “whose plan is wonderful, whose wisdom is magnificent. Matthew and Karen, since it is your intention to enter the covenant of marriage, join your right hands, and declare your consent before God and His church.”

They’d agreed to use the traditional vows beforehand, since Matt was used to them and she didn’t really care either way, although she tweaked a few things according to her preferences. But….

“Matthew?” Father Driscoll prompted in a hushed voice.

His mouth was dry and he couldn’t think under the weight of this moment, of what this promise meant. “I…” That was it, that was the most he could manage.

The quiet stretched out. Someone coughed.

Father Driscoll rescued him. “Do you, Matthew Murdock, take this woman, Karen Page, for your lawful wife? To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”

He squeezed her hand. Two little words that he had no right to say, but that was grace. “I do.”

Driscoll turned towards Karen. “And do you—”

“I, Karen Page,” she said, because she at least was strong enough for this. “Take you, Matthew Murdock, for my lawful husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.”

And there wasn’t a hint of doubt or hesitation in her voice. It was a vow that he had no right to hear, but that was grace.

“Let us pray,” the priest said formally, clasping his hands together. He started to speak, but Matt was not listening, too caught up in his own private prayer driven by more fear and faith together than he’d ever felt at one moment in his life.

_Oh God, thank You for her. Take care of her. Help me take care of her. Father, thank You._

“What God has joined together,” Father Driscoll announced, “let no one separate.”

No one, not even either of them, despite all their mistakes and missteps. He squeezed her hand and she squeezed back.

Foggy handed the rings to each of them and Matt turned her hand over. Both of them were shaking. He flashed what was probably a painfully awkward smile and slipped the ring over her finger. “Karen…” His smile stretched wider. “Receive this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity—in the name of the immutable Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, so hushed that only he could hear. He could also hear a smile in her voice that was surely lighting up the whole church. She put his ring in place but didn’t speak yet, probably because he’d suddenly gone completely still.

The inside of the ring was lined with impossibly small dots, so faint that he wondered if anyone but him would be able to feel them.

⠝⠕⠞⠓⠊⠝⠛      ⠎⠓⠁⠇⠇      ⠎⠑⠏⠁⠗⠁⠞⠑

 _Nothing shall separate._ His eyes stung.

“Receive this ring,” she said softly, “as a sign of my love and fidelity.”

He _believed_ her.

“Then by the power vested in me by God and the state of New York, I now pronounce you man and wife.” Father Driscoll leaned forward with a teasing tone. “Matthew, you may kiss your bride.”

He didn’t need any encouragement.

 

It was a hotel this time, paid for in one of Foggy’s cousin’s names, which maybe would feel weird in other circumstances. Right now, it just felt like a gift. Carrying her across the threshold into the room wasn’t quite the same as carrying her into the apartment they shared together, but it was still….

Well. It was the stuff of dreams.

They kicked off their shoes. She moved into the bathroom to take her hair down from its elegant pile on top of her head, and he leaned against the doorframe, listening and enjoying it immensely.

But she didn’t seem to be making much progress. “Can I help?” he asked.

She gave a frustrated huff. “You can certainly try.”

Putting his hands on her waist, he guided her over to the bed. Her dress swished as she sat sideways on the edge, tucking her feet up and fiddling with her bracelet, twisting it around and around the delicate skin of her wrist.

He ran his hands over her silky hair, reaffirming that he understood the general infrastructure of the design, and started slowly pulling out pins. “This okay?” He asked softly.

“Feels great, actually.”

He had to agree. After about five minutes of working in silence, however, he’d only set about half of her curls loose from the pins. “Was today more or less what you pictured?” he asked.

“If you’re asking whether it matched my dream wedding when I was seven, no.”

“Seven? That’s very specific.”

“I watched one of those Barbie movies about a wedding, and got really excited planning one. I was thinking of a castle, and Neapolitan ice cream cake, and penguins.”

“Penguins?”

“Obviously. They were supposed to be the ringbearers.”

“I can’t believe we left out that detail.” Another curl tumbled free. “And when you were older?”

“I didn’t think I’d get married. I guess it just seemed unnecessary.”

His hands stilled.

“I wanted this too,” she assured him quietly.

“I know.” He did. He got back to work. “And tonight, what was your favorite part?”

She hummed. He finished undoing her hair and moved his hands to her neck, massaging the tension there. “Watching Brett dance. I think Foggy got a video of it so I can describe it to you.”

He pulled his hands away for a second. “Hang on. Your favorite part of _our wedding_ was watching Brett Mahoney dance.”

“Yes,” she said innocently.

Well, a least he hadn’t had to see it. “Please don’t describe it. I don’t need to know.” He put his hands back on her neck, massaging lower and lower until he reached the tiny button at the top of the back of her dress. “This okay?”

Her voice was slightly breathless. “Yes.”

He undid the button and felt for the delicate zipper while he searched for another question. “What do you wish had gone differently?” It was a slightly less cheerful question, true. But it was also probing deeper than asking whether she’d like the cake. (He knew the answer to that, anyway, since she’d picked out the flavor herself.)

“My mom,” she said quietly as he inched the zipper downwards. “I wish my mom could’ve been here. For the wedding itself, obviously, but mostly for…before.”

“Before?”

“Like…fixing my hair and my makeup. Little things.” Her voice thickened. “And my brother, he was supposed to, um…” She sniffed, and as soon as the zipper was down to the small of her back, she turned around to face him. “Okay, these are really sweet questions, but you’re gonna make me cry.”

Well done, Murdock.

Holding the dress in place with one hand, she stood up. “But really. Thank you. Just…happier topics, maybe.” She lifted her chin smugly. “Ask me what I thought of my groom.”

He knew the answer to that, too, but he asked anyway.

“I thought he was pretty much perfect.”

Placing his hands on her shoulders, he touched the edge of her sleeves, shifting them fractionally down onto her arms. “This okay?”

The drumbeat of her heart filled the room. “You don’t have to keep asking that.”

“Right.” He smiled. “Karen, what did you think about…” He edged the sleeves off her shoulders and she stopped holding the dress up; it pooled around her feet. His words died in his throat.

“Yes?” she asked coyly.

He couldn’t see her, but her beauty needed no introduction. It was as obvious to him as the air he breathed.

“Matt?”

He just shook his head. “Can’t think of another question.”

“Why, is something distracting you?”

Dipping his head down, he kissed her shoulder. She was so strong, a warrior, and so full of love and kindness that she was stronger for it. And _brave_ , braver than he could believe.

Her hands drifted to his shirt. “My turn.” She unfurled the knot of his tie. He moved to help, but she covered his hands with hers. “No, let me. Stay still.”

Easier said than done.

She finished with the tie, letting it slink to the ground to join her dress, and undid each button of his shirt with painstaking care. He tried to hold still for her, a feat more impressive each time her skin brushed against his. Finally, she slid the shirt away and rested her hands on his chest.

“Don’t move,” she whispered.

It was far from the first time she’d explored his scars, but it felt like a new experience as her fingers traced over the twin lines across his chest. He opened his mouth to apologize—for the scars, for the fact that he’d gotten them in secret, for the fact that he’d kept them secret for so long, for the fact that they were a meager representation of the mess of scars inside him—but she kissed the words away when he tried to say them. Then she leaned back, just looking at him.

Settling his hands on her neck, he brushed his thumb under her chin to draw her in close again. “I love you,” he said against her mouth.

He felt her smiling, unashamed and with abandon. “Then show me.”

He scooped her up and carried her to the bed, shedding the rest of his clothes until there was nothing between them as he held himself over her, dotting kisses on her face. He knew exactly how to treat her, how to comfort and please, but tonight the weight of their promise brought a new kind of freedom to give her everything he had and enjoy everything she was.

She smelled amazing: her natural scent with odorless shampoo (never quite odorless, not to him) and a subtle hint of vanilla perfume. But beneath it, there was still the faintest trace of gun smoke in her hair.

He found that it mattered as little to him as his scars mattered to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love all your comments so much (especially since so many of them are still some variation of "Matt, you idiot") and I know I'm behind in replying, but I promise I'll get to them soon!
> 
> Shout-out to WhyWhyNot for wanting to meet Father Lantom's replacement.


	25. Guard My Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CLIFFHANGERS, cliffhangers everywhere. I love you guys, I swear, I just -

Ella

Life was not great.

She was in the car, trying really hard to keep a good attitude about everything, but she just hated it. Each day was different: sometimes she’d wake up at Micah and Maeva’s and then go to school and then go back home, some days she’d go stay with Maeva’s mom after school, and sometimes she’d spend the night with Elizabeth. It was hard. It wasn’t like she didn’t _like_ Maeva’s mom; she just didn’t _know_ Maeva’s mom, and it felt really weird to call her Grandma.

And Elizabeth? Ella missed her, yeah. But the hardest part was how even being at Elizabeth’s house didn’t mean Ella stopped missing her, because Elizabeth wasn’t really there.

The bright spot was getting to spend the day with Foggy at one point. He took her to the zoo in some other part of New York. It was the biggest zoo she’d ever seen. She’d tried to ask him more about what was going on, and how _long_ it would keep going on, but his answer to the first question wasn’t an answer at all, and he said he didn’t know how long it would last.

See, Micah and Maeva sat her down before Matt’s wedding to explain. They started way back with when she’d gotten kidnapped from Everett’s and Matt had rescued her, which freaked her out because then they said they were trying to keep anything like that from happening again. But she didn’t get why now all of a sudden they were so worried about it.

“Something happened,” was all they said.

She couldn’t figure out who they were trying to protect with that answer.

She wished Matt were around. Matt would tell her what was happening, right? He’d always told her more of the truth than anyone else. But she hadn’t seen Matt since the wedding.

“Honeymoon,” Maeva had explained when Ella asked where he was.

“What’s a honeymoon?” It sounded yummy.

She’d smiled. “After two people get married, they like to spend more time together to celebrate between just the two of them.”

“Why can’t they do that _here?_ ”

“They’re not far,” Maeva had rushed to reassure her. “They’re in a nice hotel in Hell’s Kitchen. Matt didn’t want to go too far away.”

Ella knew if she asked why, she’d get the same “something happened” answer. Instead she asked, “Can’t I go hang out with them?”

Maeva had laughed at that, which was kind of insulting. “No, baby. Leave them alone for a bit.”

So Ella was trying to make the best of things. Sitting in the backseat, she focused on running her hands over her torn knuckles. Matt would be proud: only the front two knuckles were scratched, which meant she’d actually landed the punch right. Maybe that was why no one had tattled on her—they knew better than to mess with her! She’d punched Carter Jones right in the gut when he made Huyen cry. She’d _wanted_ to kick him between the legs, but she didn’t think Matt would be happy about that. Anyway, Jeffery Kennedy came up afterwards and nervously apologized for…everything he could think of, it sounded like. Which was nice. And he’d offered to go with her to the nurse to get her knuckles taken care of. Kind of stupid of him, since going to the nurse would mean admitting she’d punched someone, but it was also kind of nice.

Maybe it was a good thing she was going to stay with Elizabeth’s. Maeva hadn’t noticed Ella’s knuckles yet, but she definitely would eventually. Elizabeth wouldn’t. Or if she did, she wouldn’t care.

The car pulled up and stopped. Maeva took the keys out and the radio shut off. Opening the door, she helped Ella out onto the sidewalk with her school backpack and her other backpack. The other backpack was brand new and bright orange and Ella loved it except for the fact that they’d gotten it for her just because of all the moving around she was doing now.

Maeva must have seen the frustration on Ella’s face because she squatted down in front of her. “When all this is over,” she said, setting the orange backpack between them, “we’ll go on vacation as a family and you can use this backpack for something fun. Okay? I promise.”

“When?” Ella asked.

Maeva shook her head sadly. “We don’t know yet. But that gives you time to think about where you wanna go.”

“Disneyland!” Ella shouted.

Maeva smiled. “We can do Disneyland.”

Ella leaned forward to hug Maeva across the backpack. Just as their arms were around each other, the front door opened and Elizabeth stepped out. But Maeva didn’t let Ella go. She was always the last to let go when she dropped Ella off with Elizabeth.

But Ella felt kind of bad for Elizabeth, so she wriggled free, grabbed her school backpack, and trotted up the steps to the old yellow house. Maeva followed more slowly with the orange backpack.

“Thank you for doing this,” Maeva said, a little stiffly, like she did every time she dropped Ella off.

Ella waited, like she always did, hoping that Elizabeth would say something like, “I’m glad to do it,” or “It’s not a problem,” or “Of _course_.”

“You’re welcome,” Elizabeth said. Like always.

Ella sighed.

Maeva handed off the backpack to Elizabeth because Elizabeth never invited her in. Then she reached out to hug Ella again, only to stop as her eyes dropped down to Ella’s hands. “Ella,” she said softly.

Ella put her hands behind her back. “What?”

Maeva got down on the ground again so their faces were the same level and held out her hand. Reluctantly, Ella mirrored her, letting Maeva look at her knuckles.

“That must hurt,” Maeva murmured.

“Only kind of.”

“Were you fighting?” Elizabeth asked. “I thought you stopped doing that now that you’re not at Everett’s.”

Elizabeth really didn’t know anything.

“Do you have what you need to clean the cuts?” Maeva asked over Ella’s shoulder.

“I’ll take care of her,” Elizabeth said, sounding annoyed—or maybe embarrassed; Ella wasn’t sure.

Maeva didn’t seem happy, but she forced a smile anyway as she looked back at Ella. “Be good for your mom, baby.”

No. Elizabeth wasn’t her mom anymore. Kyle was definitely not her dad and Elizabeth wasn’t her mom. Ella nuzzled a little closer to Maeva. “See you tomorrow,” she whispered. “I love you, Mom.”

 

Stone

The little girl was no longer staying in the same house every day. Today, for instance, she’d gone back to where she was raised and Stone wasn’t sure why. Matty was avoiding him; had been since he’d gotten dosed with devil’s hell, the wedding invite notwithstanding.

Sitting idly on the roof of his apartment, Stone wondered if Karen was the reason he’d been invited at all.

He ran his hands through his hair, cut shorter not because Stone particularly cared (he _didn’t_ ) but because it was easier to pass unnoticed with fewer defining features. At the wedding, for instance, hardly anyone had looked at him twice. The nurse had—she worked at a hospital not far from Matty’s church, and wasn’t that convenient—and the little girl had, but Matty’s law partner had bristled like a hedgehog any time Stone ventured too close.

As for the happy couple themselves, neither one of them had ever approached Stone.

Perhaps they’d invited him purely so he could provide extra security. After all, Vanessa Fisk was dead and Stone would be shocked to learn that neither of them had been involved. Matty didn’t kill, would never kill; Stone was convinced on that point. But Karen was a different story.

And even if it wasn’t intentional, accidents happened.

But why hadn’t Matty reached out? He’d had no problem accepting Stone’s help with his trial, and again down in the tunnels when they’d taken out Gao. What changed?

Stone dragged his hand down his face, trying to figure out what he’d done wrong. Well, he could think of any number of things. He should’ve told Matty as soon as he’d returned to Hell’s Kitchen. He shouldn’t have killed anyone in front of the Spider-kid, Matty’s new student. And Stone certainly should not have told Matty that it was his own fault he’d gotten dosed with devil’s hell. But if Stone admitted that Matty’s attack had been the result of a _rescue_ attempt, perhaps Matty would have been angry. Or disgusted. Disappointed, at least.

Regardless, Stone could start the list of his transgressions far earlier. He shouldn’t have ordered the little girl’s kidnapping. He shouldn’t have kidnapped Matty. He shouldn’t have told the girl what Matty did to her father. And when he saw Matty fighting the girl’s father, he should have stepped in; then the father’s blood would have been on Stone’s hands instead.

Stone closed his eyes. It was true that he didn’t want to be like Stick, but the reality was that Stone was much worse. Once Stick learned that Matty wasn’t fit to be a soldier, he’d left. But Stone hadn’t walked away. Stone had tried to force Matty into something he couldn’t—shouldn’t—be.

But Stone _couldn’t_ have walked away. Stick was older, and perhaps that meant he was wiser or perhaps he was merely more broken, but Stick never needed Matty. Stick never needed anyone. Stone was, simply, weaker. Stone would give anything to have a brother again.

And now look. He’d lost his only chance.

 

Matt

It’d been a while since they’d trained together. But although Vanessa Fisk’s death was now public knowledge, Fisk hadn’t made a move. Matt and Karen’s woefully short honeymoon passed without incident. Now they were trying to return to a normal life despite wondering each day if _this_ would be the day that Fisk put whatever he was planning into action.

It wasn’t working so great.

Hence meeting at Fogwell’s to train. Sparring was an effective distraction from the ever-present anxiety, and it meant they got to be together, which was especially important now that Matt was loath to let her out of his remaining senses.

He stood behind her, breathing in the distinct scent of the gym, fixing her ponytail for her before they started. “Hey, Karen?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you remember our first kiss?”

Ponytail in place, she turned around. “Kind of hard to forget. I’d only been looking forward to it for over a year.”

He grinned at that. “What was it like?”

“I’m pretty sure you were there too,” she reminded him. “Do you have some kind of head injury I should be worrying about right now?”

He held the ropes apart so she could slide into the ring. “Nah. I just wanted to know more about what it was like for you. What you thought of it.”

She paused in the center of the ring. “That’s…that’s actually really sweet, Matt.”

Nice. He smirked. “Is it?”

“Isn’t it?” she asked suspiciously.

“Well, I _am_ planning on making you spar while you talk, which will give me an advantage.”

“You don’t need any advantages!” she protested.

“No, but you need to work on controlling your breathing in combat. So.” He skipped towards her and threw a light punch, nothing serious, just enough to get her on her toes. “Start talking, Mrs. Murdock.”

Her heart skipped as she parried. “It was raining.”

“Yeah?” He threw another punch, which she dodged perfectly without sacrificing her stance.

“I offered to walk you home…” She ducked again and threw a strike of her own. “I remember thinking that if you didn’t make a move, I would just do it myself.”

“Wait, really?” He was supposed to be distracting _her_ , but that threw him. “So if I hadn’t, you would’ve just…?”

“I would’ve done something.” She tried to kick his head and ended up over-extending a bit, but he let her get away with it for now. “I like how you did it, though.”

He shifted forward. “Remind me.” Reaching out, he brushed his hand across her ribs just under her breast for purely instructional purposes. “Keep your elbows in.”

She tightened her defensive stance, tucking her elbows closer to her chest as she evaded his next strike. “You made me stop walking…” She took a breath. “So we were facing each other…and when you smiled…I knew exactly what was about to happen.”

“Clever of you,” he acknowledged, trying a simple snap kick.

She stepped inside instead of sweeping his leg, but it wasn’t a bad strategy, especially when she tapped the heal of her palm under his chin. “You ran your hand up my arm…”

“Like this?” His hand wrapped around her wrist, tugging her closer.

She didn’t resist. “Nothing like that.”

“You sure?” Now he swiped her legs out from under her but caught her as she fell, twisting until he was beneath her so she could land on his body, locked in his embrace. “You should really work on your stance.”

Her hand moved behind his neck, winding through his hair. “But now I have the upper hand.”

“That what you think?” Stretching upwards, he planted a kiss on her lips and pulled her closer.

Her other hand knotted in his shirt. “Is this still training?”

“You’re doing a terrible job of controlling your breathing,” he informed her, but he was on the edge of breathless himself as he flipped them over and pinned her to the mat. The drum of her heart and scent of her sweat became the limits of his new reality when he ducked his head to kiss her. Her hands tugged at his shirt, which he pulled over his head with one hand, barely breaking contact with her lips. Their hands brushed over each other as they both tried to slide the thin straps of her tank top off her shoulders, but it got tangled somehow. They were laughing when they were interrupted by the phone ringing.

He pulled back, swearing quietly. “It’s my burner.”

She chased after him, locking her hands around his neck. “It can wait.”

“It’s for emergencies.” Begrudgingly extricating himself, he stood up and shook his head to clear it, still mostly annoyed. If it was Sone, he’d never forgive him. He heard Karen flop back down onto the mat as he slipped out from between the ropes, holding the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”

“Pay attention to what I’m about to say,” Dex began, “because she said it wouldn’t work if she has to do this a second time.”

The heat he’d been enjoying a second ago vanished. “Dex? What’re you talking about?”

“She said she didn’t ever try to hurt you, Daredevil. Not directly. But you kept on getting in the way. So she set this whole thing up and maybe you thought killing her would stop it, but it won’t. Because you forgot about me.”

“Stop what, Dex?” Matt demanded, distantly aware of Karen coming to stand behind him. “Stop what?”

“See, she realized she probably couldn’t stop you physically. The drugs haven’t worked, and you and I both know that not even a bullet will work.” Dex snorted. “But you’re the one who told me what Fisk did to Julie, so I figure Vanessa’s right.” His voice shifted into an echo of someone else’s words. “Coercion takes many forms.”

“Dex,” Matt warned. “Tell me what you’re talking about.”

“It’s the people we love who’re the most vulnerable. Isn’t that right, _Matthew?_ So after you mourn your losses—”

He grabbed onto Karen with one hand and clenched the phone tighter with the other.  “Your fight is with me. No one else.”

“That’s definitely true. Glad we’re on the same page. Hey, do you remember the last time we talked on the phone? You called me to tell me about Julie, but you waited until it was too late. You _waited_ so you could manipulate me. Just like Fisk.” His voice rose. “That’s all you people do, that’s all you ever—”

“What did you do?” Matt snarled.

Dex was quiet for a second. And another. And another. “Vanessa said that you need to know exactly why we’re doing this for this to have any impact.” He paused. “It’s not just that we enjoy it. Even though I do, and she did.”

Matt didn’t know if he should stay on the line in case Dex told him something important or hang up and call everyone he cared about, tell them all to…what? Wait for him to rescue them? _All_ of them?

“Vanessa still needs you to back off. At least, that’s what she says.” He coughed. “Sorry. Said. But I know the truth. She just hates you. As much as I do, and almost as much as you’ll hate yourself after tonight. Since I can’t seem to kill you, maybe you’ll just kill yourself. That’s why there’s another target tonight besides your partner.”

Matt’s heart leapt into his throat. “Call Foggy,” he hissed at Karen. “ _Call Foggy_.”

“Killing the lawyer by himself would muddle the message, Vanessa said,” Dex went on. “He was involved enough in Fisk’s arrest both times that she has plenty of reasons to target him. So, yeah, I’ll kill him too. But the little girl? That _stupid_ little girl that you keep dragging around like she belongs to you?”

Matt’s mind blanked.

“There’s not a single reason why Vanessa would even have noticed her if you would’ve just left her alone. Not a single reason for her to go through what’s about to happen if it weren’t for you.” His voice lowered. “Vanessa wanted you to know that, to really _think_ about that, the next time you decide to get in the way of our plans.”

“What did you—”

“Julie says hello.”

_Click._

 

Peter

Mr. Nelson’s apartment was nice. Expensive. Peter wouldn’t have minded meeting at a coffee shop as planned, but Mr. Nelson had apologetically called to say he had too much paperwork. He refused to reschedule, but asked if they could meet at his apartment instead so Mr. Nelson could talk to Peter over dinner. Mr. Nelson also offered to feed Peter and, well, Peter couldn’t really say no to that.

“And…maybe you could not tell Matt?” Peter asked hopefully, once he’d told Mr. Nelson about the decathlon and D.C. and Michelle.

Mr. Nelson—no, Foggy; he wanted Peter to call him Foggy, for no apparent reason—raised his eyebrows. “Why not?”

Because Peter was acting like a little kid. Because Matt would want to _help_ or _give advice_ and Matt was already helping Peter enough. Because it was embarrassing.  “It’s just not a big deal.”

Foggy heaved a longsuffering sigh. “First rule of successfully balancing superheroing and friendships: communicate wherever possible. Even if whatever you’re communicating sucks. _Especially_ if it sucks. So talk to Matt.”

But Matt wasn’t the one Peter needed help talking to. Then again, maybe it would be good practice.

“Look, Peter…” Foggy took a big bit of the baked chicken he’d made. Why do adults do that? Start a sentence and then take a bite? But Peter waited patiently while Foggy chewed. He looked like he was thinking about something, maybe still debating whether he should say this. “Okay,” Foggy said at last. “What do you know about Frank Castle?”

Peter cocked his head quizzically.

“The Punisher,” Foggy clarified.

“Oh. He’s…” Really cool in an illegal and super immoral way. Peter definitely daydreamed about saving Michelle from him once or twice, though he wasn’t about to admit that. “A bad guy?”

“I mean, _I_ think so,” Foggy muttered as if to himself. He shrugged. “Do you know about his trial?”

“I know he escaped prison after he was put there,” Peter said, wondering if he was supposed to have tracked all the details of the case itself.

“Well, we represented him. Matt and I.”

Peter sank awkwardly down into his chair. “Sorry, I knew that,” he mumbled. “I knew that when I was researching you guys. I mean, I was mostly researching Matt, but I—I mean—I knew that,” he finished lamely.

Foggy seemed unperturbed. “The point is, we lost the trial. Big. It was…” He kind of rolled his eyes. “It was a mess. And I don’t think Matt would mind me telling you this, given the circumstances, so…” He took a deep breath. “It was one hundred percent Matt’s fault.”

Peter blinked. “But he’s a good lawyer.”

“Yeah, when he bothers to actually _be_ a lawyer. That’s the thing, though. He was so caught up in Daredevil that he forgot about the rest of his life.” Foggy tilted his head, eyes narrowing, scrutinizing Peter. “Kinda like how I hear you’re a good student, when you bother to actually _be_ a student. And I bet you’re a great decathlon teammate…when you bother to actually _be_ a teammate.”

Peter dropped his gaze to his own plate. “I get it.”

“Cool, but I’m not done.” Foggy sort of waved his fork around. “So right now Matt and Karen are happily married and all, which is the only reason I’m telling you _this_ part, but…Matt let Daredevil get between them, too.”

Peter did not want to hear about this.

“He kept having to lie, since Karen didn’t know. He lied about his injuries, and he lied about why he was missing work all the time, and it…it was bad. They actually started dating before he told her the truth, and that completely blew up.”

“I’m not dating anyone,” Peter pointed out.

Foggy ignored that. “It hurt both of them. Honestly, it still hurts them, even though they’re working through it. That much betrayal doesn’t just disappear.”

“I’m not…” Peter stared blankly at the table. “I mean, I can’t just tell every girl I meet who I am on the off chance that I’ll wanna marry her someday.”

Foggy didn’t answer; when Peter looked up, his eyebrows were raised incredulously.

Peter deflated. “I know that’s not what you’re saying.”

“What am I saying, then?”

“I don’t know. That I should…tell Michelle?”

“I’m not saying you have to tell Michelle anything,” Foggy said, more thoughtfully now. “But make up your mind if you’re determined to keep her in the dark. Don’t try to have it both ways. It’s not fair to either of you.”

“Yeah,” Peter agreed quietly.

“And if you do tell her something, it doesn’t have to be _everything_ ,” he went on. “You could tell her that Tony Stark singled you out for some projects and that it’s dangerous sometimes, and top secret. Or you could tell her about some of your powers, and tell her that sometimes you miss normal things because you’re using them to help people, without telling her that you’re Spiderman specifically.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what good that would do, but hey, it’s an option. This isn’t an all-or-nothing situation.”

Felt like one, though.

“At the same time…” Foggy paused. “Telling her more of the truth won’t solve the problem if you can’t decide, for yourself, if you want to be Peter Parker _and_ Spiderman.” He gestured pointedly with his fork. “Because Spiderman runs around and stops bad guys, but Peter Parker goes to school and helps his team and takes care of his aunt. Right?”

That all made sense, sure. Peter just wasn’t sure how to put an of that into practice. “Right.”

Foggy smiled encouragingly. “You’re smart, Peter. Like, scary smart. And look at you, you’re asking for help— _before_ your life goes to crap. In my book, that makes you smarter than Matt.”

Peter laughed before he could help himself, which was probably really rude. But his apology was interrupted by a tiny rendition of _Poker Face_ from Foggy’s phone.

“One sec,” Foggy said needlessly, holding the phone to his ear. “Karen? I’m at my apartment with Peter, what—” He immediately stiffened, pressing the phone tighter against his ear. He paled. “What, _now?_ ”

Peter stood up.

Foggy did, too, knocking his chair backwards, lowering his phone. “Peter, you gotta get out of here.”

He opened his mouth to answer, but then his head snapped around. His spidey sense was on _fire_ , sending sharp tingles of electricity through his entire body.

“Peter?” Foggy asked more urgently.

“Danger,” Peter hissed. He was at the window in a flash, trying to see the threat. “Someone’s coming!”

“Get away from the window,” Foggy barked, and Peter dropped to the floor a second later as a bullet shot through the air where his head had been, embedding itself in the opposite wall. “What the hell?” Foggy yelled.

Peter still wasn’t as good with heartbeats as Matt, but he recognized this one. It was the lunatic with the gun.

Foggy was huddled on the ground, swearing up a storm, texting someone with shaking hands. Peter didn’t stop to ask about that, he just shot webbing at the window. Wouldn’t stop a bullet, but it would make it harder for the gunman to get in that way.

He was so focused on the window that he didn’t notice the front door opening until Foggy yelped and threw something. Uh, threw his phone. Whipping around, Peter saw a tall figure in the doorway, arms raised, holding Foggy’s phone between two fingers with a disgruntled look on his face.

“Stone,” Foggy gasped.

Right, it was the creepy dude that showed up that one time and killed people right in front of Matt. Yeah, Peter had been kind of concussed at the time, but there was no forgetting _that_ disaster.

Stone tossed the phone back at Foggy and kicked the door shut behind him. “He’s coming around the front. Web up the door.”

Peter didn’t waste a second, although he did keep an eye on Stone who made his way into Foggy’s kitchen, rummaged through a door, and lobbed a knife at Foggy, who scrambled out of its way.

“For you,” Stone explained impatiently.

Foggy poked at the knife with his toe. “Yeah, no, that’s not my—”

“Trust me,” Stone interrupted. “You’re going to need it.”


	26. You See Right Through

Foggy

Okay, fine. He picked up the knife, got a good grip on the handle. It wasn’t like he’d _use_ it, but Stone wanted him to hold onto it or something, so—fine.

Peter finished spinning in circles, webbing up every open area. Now he started shooting webbing at random things in the apartment. The other knife on the cutting board, random knickknacks.

Foggy gaped at him. “What are you doing?”

“M—Daredevil said not to let this guy throw stuff!”

“You can call him by his name,” Stone grumbled. “We all know who he is.”

Peter seemed to realize, in that moment, that Stone could easily figure out who _Peter_ was, since Peter wasn’t wearing a mask. His wide brown eyes flicked over to Foggy as if asking for help. Before Foggy could do anything, Peter shot webbing into his own hand and pressed it to his face, clearing away a small strip for his eyes.

That was one way to handle it.

Rolling his eyes, Stone took up a position just to the left of the door, his back pressed to the wall, a knife held at the ready. Peter jumped up to cling to the roof, one arm stretched towards the door, ready to shoot. Foggy wiped the sweat on his palm off on his pants, gripped the knife tighter, and swallowed nervously.

There was a crashing sound and the entire door shuddered. Foggy was starting to think that one knife really wasn’t good enough. Another _bang_ and the door flew open. Dex must’ve kicked it because he stepped straight through, firing his gun at Peter. Peter fell from the ceiling, spraying webbing that went nowhere specific. But Stone lunged from his corner, wrapping one arm around Dex and driving his knife up to the hilt in Dex’s side.

It was like Dex didn’t even _care_.

His gun pointed straight at Foggy. Peter’s webbing knocked the gun out of alignment just as it went off and the bullet landed in Foggy’s shoulder instead. There was a moment of pure shock. Then Foggy looked down.

You know how in movies, the heroes get shot in the shoulder and everyone breathes a sigh of relief because it wasn’t that bad?

It was that bad.

Foggy’s whole world narrowed to the blazing fire in his skin and muscle. His knife was long gone, lost on the floor somewhere. He was screaming, and someone upstairs was yelling at him to keep it down. He forced his eyes open to see Stone rip the knife out of Dex’s side—red blood everywhere—and adjust his grip to stab again.

“Don’t!” Peter gasped from the floor.

Dex threw an elbow; Stone blocked it effortlessly, twisted the gun out of his hands, and struck the butt of it hard against Dex’s forehead. With a low moan, Dex crumpled to the ground.

“F-Foggy,” Peter said.

Stone stepped across Dex’s body, tucking the gun into his belt. “He’ll be fine. A neighbor called the cops, so he’ll get the medical attention he needs. So will you, if you stay long enough.” Yanking a towel from where it hung in the kitchen, he crouched beside Foggy and pressed it to the wound. Foggy must’ve passed out or something, because the next thing he knew, Peter had shed his webshooters and his makeshift mask and was slumped beside him. Stone and Dex were both gone.

Foggy’s head somehow ended up on Peter’s shoulder. “What’d I miss?” He slurred.

“Police and ambulance are about a block away,” he said in a distant voice, much like the one Matt used when listening to something beyond what normal people could hear.

“You gotta go.” Foggy valiantly lifted his head, letting it fall back against the wall. “They’ll figure out who you are.”

“Nah. We’ll say there was a shooter, Spiderman swooped in to save the day, and took off. Guess I just got shot because I was hanging out with my friend, right?”

“You got shot!” Foggy sort of jolted upright.

Peter put an unfairly strong hand on Foggy’s chest. “It’s okay. Stone dug the bullet out so I won’t need anything more invasive than stitches. Should be fine.”

Foggy was having a hard time tracking this conversation. “But…couldn’t Stone have stitched you up?”

Peter blinked. “He didn’t offer? Besides…” He stretched out a little, pressing a hand to his side. “I figure Michelle will be less likely to yell at me about everything if I’m recovering in a hospital. She _might_ even be almost sympathetic.”

Huh. “You’re gonna tell her, then?”

“Some of it, at least,” he said awkwardly. “Foggy, she’s my friend.”

Foggy’s eyes fluttered closed again. “Good for you.”

 

Matt; forty-five minutes earlier

In Fogwell’s Gym, Karen lowered her phone. “Foggy’s with Peter at his apartment.”

Good, okay. That was relatively safe, all things considered. Holding his phone to his ear, Matt bounced on the balls of his feet, waiting and waiting for Micah to pick up.

“Matt?” Micah finally asked.

“Where’s Ella?” Matt demanded.

“Elizabeth’s,” he answered immediately. “What’s wrong?”

“The person behind devil’s hell just threatened her. You need to get her somewhere safe. I’m on my way.” He was out the door already, ignoring the jacket Karen thrust at him.

Micah’s muffled voice told someone he needed to leave for an emergency, then he spoke clearly into the phone. “I’m headed there now. What else can you tell me?”

“The sniper who attacked us at the church is part of the plan. That’s all I know.”

Micah swore; a car rumbled to life around him. “I’m ten minutes out. You?”

“Five.” By rooftop, at least. He hung up as Karen grabbed his elbow, her other hand waving for a taxi. “No time,” he hissed at her.

She didn’t let go. “You’ll be caught, don’t—”

“Stay here,” he ordered (futilely, he knew). He tore free of her grip. It was ungentle and she was neither skilled enough nor strong enough to hold him back. She could get a cap if she wanted, but he vaulted from the large transformer box onto the nearest roof. It was broad daylight, but at least he wasn’t wearing either of his suits.

At this point, he didn’t really care anyway.

He knew exactly how to get to Elizabeth’s. He’d been there enough while she was still going back and forth between Everett’s and Elizabeth’s home, although he wouldn’t have forgotten after his first visit anyway. But it was an older part of Hells’ Kitchen. No skyscrapers to run across. Instead, he jumped from one two-story building to another, probably doing irreparable damage to someone’s rooftop garden, and hoped no one glanced up and called the cops.

Someone clattered loudly somewhere, and he tripped and would’ve sworn if he had the breath for it. His hearing, his stupid hearing wasn’t right yet. He couldn’t hear Ella’s heartbeat until he was in the yard next door. But it was too fast, way too fast, and it was the only one in the house.

And he could smell devil’s hell hanging in the air, a breeze dispersing it through the neighborhood.

Landing in their backyard, he found the sliding door unlocked. He burst inside. “Ella!” he shouted. “Are you all right?”

“Matt!” She came stumbling out of the bathroom. Her voice was weak, but happy. “You came to see me! I missed you!”

He skidded on his knees in front of her, breathing in the smell of blood clinging to her. “You’re hurt.”

“Not really.” She twisted her arm around like she was trying to see the back of it. “I kind of cut myself falling in the backyard and then I was trying to find a band aid, which I guess is a good thing because I was already in the bathroom when I got sick.”

Yes, he could smell that too, under the blood. Not good, not good. “Ella, I need you to tell me something. Have you eaten or drank anything strange?”

“Um, no? Just stuff from the fridge.” She leaned against the wall. “But I don’t feel very good.”

“C’mere.” Pulling her closer, he focused on tracing all the scents along her body.

“Are you sniffing me?”

“Shh.” There it was. Devil’s hell was concentrated around her mouth. She’d already ingested it. And she was so small; she wouldn’t make it to Claire’s. The church was closer, but he wasn’t sure Maggie was equipped to handle this.

Could she even make it that far? He could carry her, but he didn’t think he could get her there fast enough, and if together they didn’t make it, he didn’t…he didn’t want her to be stuck on a rooftop if he couldn’t…. He shook his head. Micah was coming with a car. Micah was close, right?

“Matt?”

“Hang tight, okay?” He tried to smile and keep his voice light while he pulled out his phone and called Maggie. “Hey, Mom, are you at the church? I need you to call Claire and get ready to help someone with…with D-E-V-I—”

“Matt,” Ella interrupted, sounding annoyed. “I _know_ how to spell.”

“—L-H-E-L-L,” he finished quickly. “Call Claire.”

Maggie started asking questions, but he hung up, not wanting to frighten Ella with his answers if he could help it. He rested his forehead against hers, trying to think. His brain was fuzzy with a panic that had turned into something dull and useless. _He_ was useless. She’d thrown up already; that meant the hallucinations were about to start, if they hadn’t already, and her heartrate was still too accelerated, and she was so small.

He couldn’t…he couldn’t protect her from this, not now that it was inside her.

He was too late.

The urgency drained from his body. If Micah got there in time, that was one thing. But if Micah was too late with the car, then all Matt cared about was that Ella felt safe and happy and loved as long as she was still…with him. “Where’s Elizabeth?” he asked quietly.

Ella swayed into him. “She left, she went to the store or something, I dunno.”

She’d left her alone. If food from the fridge was spiked, she probably…this probably would have happened anyway. But if Dex hadn’t called, Ella would’ve been _alone_. Through the nightmares, and also…after. Maybe no one would even have _found_ her for hours. Tugging her closer, he picked her up and set her on the kitchen counter, keeping one hand on her shoulder to steady her as he reached for a towel to wrap around her arm.

“Hey…hey, Matt. It’s okay.” She put a hand on his cheek when he tightened the towel. “They said blood isn’t that scary, remember?”

“Not normally,” he agreed thinly. “But right now, it’s really important that I get the bleeding to stop. Don’t worry. Micah’s on his way and he’ll take care of you.” Was that a lie?

“Am I scared?” she asked suddenly.

Closing his eyes, he kissed her forehead. “What makes you say that?”

“My heart’s going _crazy_. Look, feel.” She grabbed his hand and put it against her chest.

He tried to smile. “That’s just your body, Ella. Your body might be scared, but _you_ are brave.”

“I don’t feel brave. I don’t—” Her head whipped around. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” he reassured her.

“Matt.” Her breathing quickened. “What’s that?”

He couldn’t do this. “It’s nothing, Ella, please. Just hold on, Micah’s coming.”

“Daddy?” Her voice was scared as she cringed away from something only she could see.

“Not—not your dad. Micah’s coming.” He didn’t want to watch this. “But he’s not here yet, it’s just—it’s just you and me, Ella, c’mon. Look at me.”

“Daddy!” She flinched away from him.

Matt snapped his head up as a fist banged on the front door. He lifted Ella off the counter (didn’t trust her ability to balance without him) and led the way down the hall, but then she shrank away, hanging back even when he opened the door to reveal Micah.

“I already called the ambulance,” Micah whispered, stepping slowly inside.

“No hospitals,” Matt whispered back. “We’re taking her to my church.”

Micah’s entire body tensed. “She needs professional treatment.”

“I can’t _protect her_ in a hospital.”

“She doesn’t need protection, she needs a doctor!”

“This wasn’t an accident!” Matt fought to keep his voice down. “There’ll be help waiting at my church, but no hospital is safe.”

Micah grabbed Matt’s arm. “You better know what you’re doing.”

“If you want her to live,” Matt growled, “you have to trust me.”

With a broken curse, Micah let go.

Ella was still cowering in the hallway. Crouching beside her, Matt pushed her damp curls out of her face. “We’ve gotta go with Micah right now, okay? Can you come with us?”

She nodded against the hand cupping her face, her breath light and shallow against his palm, and didn’t resist when he picked her up. Instead, she buried her face in his neck, fingers tightening in the folds of his shirt.

He bundled her into the backseat and Micah floored it. Ella started shivering. “Matt, I’m not wearing my seatbelt.”

“You don’t need one,” he soothed, in case the sensation of being restrained set off a new nightmare.

“I’ll _die!_ ”

She sounded so scared that he buckled her up as fast as humanly possible.

It calmed her down ever so slightly. “What’s happening?”

“Someone bad is trying to make you sick.” He wet his lips. “You know…you know when you have nightmares? The thing that’s making you sick is also going to make you have nightmares, even though you’re awake. They’re called hallucinations and they make it really hard to tell whether something’s real or not. But look.” He took her hand and moved it to his neck, under his jaw. “Feel my pulse? That’s real. I’m real. I want you to keep your hand right here and count every beat of my heart.”

She pressed harder against his pulse. “It’s really fast.”

“That just means you have to concentrate, all right? Pay extra attention so you don’t miss anything.”

She nodded, but let out a yelp a second later, cringing in her seat. “Stop, stop!”

“Not real,” Matt hushed her. “I know it’s scary, but it’s not real.”

But by the time they reached the church, she’d curled herself into a tiny ball of terror. At least it was easier to carry her into the basement, her blood staining his shirt, past the one or two parishioners lingering in the church who startled at the sight of them. And Claire was there in the basement, waiting with a bag full of equipment. He almost wept aloud.

The instant he put Ella on the bed, she started thrashing in place, a high keening noise tearing from her throat.

“Hold her still,” Claire ordered, not waiting to see who followed her instructions as she readied a needle. Maggie darted in under Matt to hold Ella’s arm steady, so Matt backed up.

Had to just…stay out of the way. He couldn’t fix this.

Nor could Micah, who stood frozen beside him. “She should be in a hospital,” he was muttering.

Too late for that.

“How much does she weigh?” Claire demanded.

“Fifty pounds,” Matt and Micah answered at the same time.

Ella flailed; the needle slipped out; the scent of blood sharpened. Matt strained to catch every beat of her heart. If it stopped…if it stopped….

“Did you know this would happen?” Micah asked under his breath.

Matt didn’t answer. He listened as Claire pushed the needle in again and Ella yelled at her to stop.

Micah spoke fast and quiet, just between the two of them. “It’s because of you, right? There’s a record tying you to Ella, and Vanessa Fisk knew your name. She did this.”

“Matt,” Claire barked. “What’s her heartrate like? Slowing down?”

“Not yet,” he answered faintly. The air was thick with Ella’s tears, with the sounds of her trying to muffle her own panic.

“Ella, honey,” Maggie was saying, holding pills in her hand. “I need you to swallow these.”

Ella strained to get away. “No, no, don’t want, I don’t want this!”

Micah turned in a sharp, agitated circle, with his hands clasped around his neck. “I actually trusted you, Matt, _damnit_.”

Yeah, shouldn’t have.

Ella screamed again, loud and shrill and terrified, and suddenly Micah was shouting like that would drown out the sound. “She wouldn’t be drugged at all if it wasn’t for you!”

Matt knew that, he already _knew_ that, so it was unfair of the words to hurt like that. “Stop, I’m trying to hear—” He broke off.

Ella’s heart skipped a beat.

 

Ella

Dad was shouting and Matt was tense and angry and the whole world smelled like blood, blood, blood. Matt’s blood from when he got shot, Kyle’s blood from when Matt…from when Matt…she blinked, and suddenly she could see it.

Kyle, his fact twisted up like a Halloween monster, running at Matt with a knife, and Matt was wearing all black with a scary mask over his face like he’d done that night he’d rescued her so long ago, and Matt had a knife too, and Ella yelled and yelled at them to be careful, to just put the knives away _please_ , but they couldn’t hear her no matter how loud she screamed.

Kyle got too close and Matt stepped forward, his knife slashing upwards, ripping straight through Kyle’s shirt—that fancy gray one that he wore to Grandma’s funeral, and then he got mad when Ella spilled her drink on him—and through his skin until he was covered in blood.

He always told her to be careful about blood. Ella looked down at her hands to see them stained red.

“You had to drag her into this!” Dad shouted.

Ella flinched. Dad was yelling at Matt, yelling at Matt and pointing at Kyle, because Kyle was _trying to get back up_ so of course Matt had to stab him again.

And again.

And again.

Kyle wouldn’t stay down.

“Please,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut even though that didn’t make a difference, even though she still saw everything. “Please stop.”

“He did it for you, Ella,” Stone reminded her in her ear. “Just for you.”

“Matt, stop!” she shrieked. “I don’t want this! _I don’t want this!_ ”

Large hands landed on her shoulders. Warm, steady. “Buttercup, you’re just as bad,” Dad was saying. “You can’t stay with Maeva and me anymore. You’re not what we were hoping for.”

She blinked and found herself hiding under her bed in her old room. She heard Kyle’s footsteps coming up the stairs. Scrambling backwards, she smacked into the wall. Trapped. Kyle started yelling, and Dad started yelling too. He was yelling at Matt again and she’d never heard him sound so angry.

“Ella.” That was Matt’s voice now. She forced her eyes open and wished she hadn’t. There was so much fear and hurt in his pretty eyes that it made her even more scared than she was already. “Ella, listen to me.”

She tried, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“Ella, child.” Now it was a woman who had such a kind face, but her tone was sharp and worried. “Count your breaths. Focus on your breathing. One, two, three…good girl.”

One, two, three. One, two, three.

“Be brave, Ella.” That was all the warning Ella got before the needle was stuck in, _again_. How many times would they stab her now? Hands held her down when she tried to flinch away. “I know it doesn’t feel good, but this needle has to stay in. Understand, Ella? It _has_ to. It’s helping you.”

She tried to believe it.

 

Micah

His little girl was suffering for reasons completely outside her control. Outside Micah’s control. The only person who possibly could’ve stopped this was standing like a statue in a ragged, sleeveless shirt.

What was he still doing down here, anyway? His special senses should work just as well outside of this basement, where at least he’d be able to act as a first line of defense if they had another threat to deal with. At least then Micah wouldn’t have to bite back curses every time he looked over and saw that ghost-white face.

Ella still wouldn’t hold still long enough for the needle to stay in.

Matt started abruptly forward and Ella recoiled from his approach. Micah moved instinctively to intercept him, but Matt reacted faster than Micah had ever seen, catching Micah’s wrist and twisting enough that Micah couldn’t resist when Matt shoved him backwards. The nurse’s eyebrows shot upwards as she glanced over her shoulder.

Matt barely seemed to have noticed, all attention on Ella, but Micah’s wrist throbbed as his brain latched onto the fact that this wasn’t a worried attorney or even a worried family friend. This was a tightly-wound vigilante whose entire body was a weapon and who looked a second away from snapping.

So Micah did the brave thing and planted himself once more between Matt and Ella. “You need to leave.”

“Not the time for this,” the nurse warned.

Matt didn’t react at all, like neither of them had spoken. His unseeing eyes stayed fixed on Ella’s twitching body.

Micah clenched his jaw and snapped his fingers, causing Matt’s head to snap around. “You need to leave before one of us makes a mistake.”

Now Matt’s eyes flickered across Micah’s face. He opened his mouth, shut it, turned, and took the stairs two at a time.

“I should slap you for that,” Sister Maggie told him as she pressed her hand over Ella’s mouth, forcing her to swallow the pills.

The nurse just gritted her teeth, trying to pin down Ella’s arm with one hand and check her pulse with the other. “Hold her.”

So Micah pressed himself across her thrashing body, holding her in place while she begged him to move, to get off, to make it all stop. But there was nothing more he could do and he couldn’t tell her that, couldn’t make her understand. All she knew was that she was hurting and scared and he was pinning her down in her fear and pain.

Her eyes opened, locked onto him, and recognized him. “Daddy!” she wailed. “Daddy, stop, stop, make it stop, _why won’t you stop?_ ”

This wasn’t the time to think about whether she would ever forgive him, whether he was currently breaking whatever trust they’d managed to build together.

He would confront that that once he knew she’d live.

 

She lost consciousness at around two in the morning. But the nurse seemed relieved.

“We’re past the worst of it,” she said wearily. “Her heart held out.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, still holding Ela’s hand, Micah slowly raised his head. “She’ll be okay?”

“Physically?” Sister Maggie murmured.

Because the drug induced fear. But Ella’s brain already tormented her with more than enough nightmares without outside help. It wasn’t right. And she’d been trying hard to work through it: talking to Maeva and Micah about what she saw in her dreams, going to therapy.

What would this drug do to her?

What had _he_ done to her?

“If her heart didn’t stop before, it shouldn’t stop now,” the nurse explained. “She’ll sleep it off, and then…”

And then face the aftermath.

Micah wiped the drying sweat away from the back of his neck. He could deal with whatever damage he’d done to his daughter after she’d rested. But there was one other relationship he’d hurt tonight.

Possibly the wise thing was to leave it alone, to let both of him and Matt get a full night of sleep before facing each other again. Instead, Micah kissed Ella’s cheek, pushed himself to his feet, offered the nurse and Sister Maggie a weary nod of thanks, and took the stairs one step at a time.

The sanctuary was dark, lit only by a few candles and the streetlights that managed to filter dimly through the windows, though the shadows would make no difference to Matt. He didn’t look comfortable, slumped on the ground with his back to a pillar in the center of the lobby area, which also positioned him effectively in the very center of the church. Keeping watch.

Micah’s stab of guilt became a blunt ache.

Matt didn’t react as Micah edged closer, eventually lowering himself to the ground a foot or so away. Micah was so tired and now that he was sitting down, he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes. Let someone else take care of things. Instead, he forced his tongue to move. “I owe you another apology.”

“What for?” Matt asked dully.

Wasn’t it obvious? Well, if it would make him feel better to hear Micah spell it out, Micah would not deny him. “For blaming you for what happened.”

Micah could clearly see the emptiness in his blind eyes. “You weren’t wrong.”

So it wasn’t obvious. “Matt,” Micah began slowly. “I was scared.”

He remained impassive. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“No, I mean…” How was he supposed to fix this? “I wasn’t thinking about what I was saying. I wouldn’t have said any of that if I hadn’t been so damn terrified.”

Matt didn’t answer.

“I shouldn’t have said any of it,” Micah insisted.

“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t true.”

“You saved her. You’re the reason she’s still—”

He laughed coldly. “You really believe that? I didn’t hear her call for help, I wasn’t watching out for her. I would’ve had no idea what happened except Dex’s sadism got ahead of him. If he’d just had the patience to tell me what he did _after_ it was already…” His eyes darted up to the ceiling. “It would’ve been too late, and I…”

Micah sat up.

Matt drew his legs in, hugging his knees to his chest with his head lowered. It would have looked like self-comfort, but Matt was far too stiff, even frozen in place.

“Matt,” Micah said firmly. “I’m the one who has to apologize. Not you.”

He was already shaking his head. “I endangered your whole family and none of you got a say in that. Least of all Ella.”

Micah couldn’t believe it. “She loves you. She wants to be just like you!”

Matt flinched at that. “We met when I was a _lawyer_ and she got attached to me because I was her _friend_. She didn’t know I was Daredevil until we already had this whole relationship and she’s a seven-year-old! An adult might stop and think and reevaluate, but she didn’t question it. Clearly, she should have.”

“I thought you were supposed to be smart,” Micah said flatly. “What do you call waking up from nightmares—about _you_ , by the way, and the violence you’re capable of—if not chances to reevaluate?”

He just shook his head again.

Micah wanted to crawl into a hole or, better yet, erase this entire day from reality. He hadn’t been there to protect Ella, wouldn’t have even known she needed protection if Matt hadn’t told him, and yet, by this point, Micah had effectively broken his relationships with both Ella and Matt.

All right. This was probably not the best time to force Matt into accepting his apology. And he wanted to be there when Ella woke up. He got to his feet, but glanced back down at Matt. “You coming?”

He was staring at the floor. “Go take care of her.”

“Matt. She’ll want to see you.”

“I need to keep listening.”

“You can do that from the basement.”

Matt finally raised his head, eyes glassy. “Micah. Go.”

Micah’s chest tightened. Hadn’t Matt talked once about how the real test of trust was when something went wrong, and the other person didn’t leave?

Especially, he’d said, if the thing that went wrong was the first person’s fault.

But it felt like imposing to linger here, and Ella needed her dad, and Matt would want him to prioritize Ella’s needs anyway, right?

Hating himself, Micah returned to the basement, leaving Matt behind in the dark.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to Me for wanting to see Matt and Micah's relationship tested. This angst is your fault and I love you for it.
> 
> And this fic just passed the 100-kudo mark. Guys, thank you so much!


	27. Hard Truth

Matt

“Shh, little one,” Maggie said from down below in the basement. “You’re safe now.”

Matt listened more carefully. Ella was trying to sit up, but she needed help to remain upright. “What—what—” Her breathing grew rapid again, panic setting in anew just from the memories. He was familiar.

Fabric rustled as Maggie pulled her closer. “Shh. Breath with me, Ella.”

Ella couldn’t match Maggie’s breath, but she tried.

“I know you can’t remember much,” Maggie was saying, “but we’ve been here the whole time. You’re safe. You were sick, but you’re safe. The things you remember were just part of being sick. They’re not real.”

Ella was crying again, every breath shakier than the last, but she froze as Claire backed away, leaving room for Micah as his footsteps drew cautiously closer.

Matt got up. She had Maggie and Micah and Claire and there was no indication that anyone belong to Vanessa was anywhere near the church. Ella would be fine. He moved without thinking to the door, stepping outside into the cool spring night, but he still heard the bedframe creak below as Ella flinched away from Micah.

She was scared right now, but she was brave. Brave enough to be friends with a man who hid his violence with a mask. She’d recover and she’d remember that Micah never hurt her.

Matt turned down the street, pretending he hadn’t heard Ella asking for him by name. He was two blocks away when his phone started vibrating. “Karen, Karen, Karen.”

Matt stopped dead. If she was calling to tell him, to tell him something happened to Foggy…if Matt just didn’t answer, he wouldn’t have to know.

That was cowardly. He put the phone to his ear.

“Foggy’s fine,” she said immediately. “Peter and Stone were both there. Dex got away, but Foggy and Peter are safe at the hospital. Peter was already released and no one seems to suspect anything about him.”

He closed his eyes with relief. “Foggy and can’t stay there anymore.”

“They know. They’re going to stay with some of Marci’s relatives for a bit.”

“Good. Good.” Not perfect, but good.

“And…” Karen wavered for a second. “Ella’s okay?”

“She’s fine. We got her to the church where Claire and my mom took care of her. She and Micah are with her.”

Then there was a rush of air as Karen pulled the phone away, and he heard her distant voice relaying the information to whoever else was with her. The phone shifted again as Karen turned back to him. “Are you still with them?”

He was halfway home by this point. “No.”

“Are you okay?” she asked immediately.

“Yeah, me, I’m fine.”

“Where are you?”

Could she maybe give him five seconds without an interrogation? “I’m going home.”

“I’m just helping Foggy and Marci pack and then I’ll meet you there.” She hung up.

Because his home was hers now and there was no retreat. Well, he could beat her home and put on the mask and go back out. He could chase down criminals until the sun rose. But then she would just be home by herself, and that wasn’t _safe_. Fisk already sent the FBI to his apartment once before and Karen was a Murdock now. Fisk could find her there regardless of whether he was hunting Matt or Karen.

Her apartment still needed a renter, and crashing there was cheaper (and smelled better) than staying at another motel; he sent her a text telling her to go to her own apartment for the night. He only made it about a block before his phone started chiming her name again. Avoiding the call was all but guaranteed to send her straight to his place, so he stopped under the heat of a streetlight. “Yeah?”

Her voice was hard and assertive. “Matt, what happened.”

“Fisk happened, Karen. My apartment is a death trap.”

“Is that death trap where you’re going right now?”

He tipped his head back in frustration.

“Where are you? Where are you right now?”

“Under a streetlight,” he muttered.

“I swear, as soon as I see you again, I’m putting a GPS on your phone.”

“Karen, please.” He clenched his jaw. “Fine, I won’t go back to my place, I promise.” He braced himself; clearly, he had to give her _something_ to get her to back off. “But what happened with Ella was really…hard.” He took a deep breath. “I kind of need to be alone right now.”

She didn’t answer. Certainly because his words had hurt her.

Why couldn’t he just be easy to help? “I’m sorry, I…” He trailed off.

“To clarify,” she said slowly, “Ella’s okay, right? She’ll recover completely?”

“Yeah. Yeah, she’ll be fine.”

“Good. Okay.” She paused. “Did…did something else happen?”

He wasn’t so far gone as to actually hang up on her, but this would be a wonderful time for a dropped call. “Just…just…there was a _conversation_ , and I…” He quit. “Can I tell you later?”

“I have a compromise. We’ll both meet at my apartment and I won’t ask you any questions. Sound fair?”

Not really, but he didn’t think arguing would get him anywhere.

 

She’d kept her promise not to interrogate him, but she’d never technically promised not to go to his apartment, which he found out once she met him at her place. He’d beaten her to her apartment, found it cold and empty, and gone back out to buy blankets so that there was something warm she could wrap herself in by the time she arrived. She, meanwhile, showed up with Frank in tow.

“I couldn’t leave her,” she’d said before Matt could demand to know what she’d been thinking. “Not if it really is that dangerous.”

Now he couldn’t sleep. He was lying on a nest of blankets and Karen was beside him with a ring on her finger and Frank was stretched across their feet. Maybe they weren’t home, maybe they were in fact hiding in a stale-smelling apartment because home wasn’t safe, but _this moment_ was safe. This moment was everything he’d ever wanted.

His eyes were open, staring towards the window. It wasn’t late enough to go out, and Hell’s Kitchen was quiet anyway. No one needed him. There was absolutely nothing to distract him from replaying the sounds of Ella suffering, replaying every word Micah had said.

Didn’t matter that he’d come back and apologized for it. Didn’t matter that he’d attempted to undo it. The things people said in the middle of panic were a far more accurate reflection of what they truly believed than the platitudes they offered afterward.

Besides, Micah was right. Matt had known how easy it would be for someone to trace Matt Murdock straight to Ella Vallier, and he’d known that Vanessa, Fisk, and Dex all knew that Matt Murdock was Daredevil. This wasn’t even the first time Dex targeted Ella.

And Stick always told him that being a warrior would put anyone close to him in danger.

Matt should’ve known better.

He tried to focus on Karen. She was so peaceful beside him with her hand resting close to him on the pillow beside his head, chest rising and falling with each even breath, and so deeply asleep that she didn’t stir even when he pressed his mouth to the delicate skin under her wrist. He cycled through his senses—hearing her, smelling her, feeling her, even tasting her—but it wasn’t enough to bring him anywhere near relaxation. Seemed unfair to be unable to sleep _now_ , when he’d gladly take the nightmares over lying here wide awake in this empty apartment with the memories echoing around his head.

He could wake her up. Maybe she’d make him food or coffee or maybe she’d just sit there with him and talk to him about something unimportant. Maybe she’d stumble upon the magical words that would make all of this feel okay again. Maybe.

Or maybe she’d curl up in his lap and not look at him while he found the courage to actually tell her what happened. What Micah said. What Matt was feeling now. Logically, he supposed that would help him the most.

But what would be the point? She already knew enough: she knew that Vanessa had targeted Ella to send him a message. She didn’t need to know the details of how…how close it had been. And she definitely didn’t need to know what Micah had thought about it.

Because it was one thing for Karen to choose to be with him, but she wanted more from him. With him. Now even though Vanessa was gone, Fisk and Dex were still out there and they’d both proven that they had no reservations about hurting children to get to him.

He loved her so much that it _hurt_ and they’d promised each other they’d make this work, and she’d been so steadfast through everything that he actually _believed_ her, believed that the two of them would last together. But she wanted more than just the two of them. Ultimately, he wanted nothing less than to give her whatever she wanted, give her the whole world, bring her dream into reality if he could, and he’d been…he’d actually been almost ready.

Not anymore. He couldn’t _do_ that as long as they were targets—which they would be, until something (someone) stopped both Fisk and Dex. For good this time.

He kissed her wrist and whispered an apology against her skin, then soundlessly extricated himself from the blankets, and dressed in black.

 

Fisk was still in prison. It wasn’t hard to get over the wall; he waited for the instant when the guard at the tower wasn’t looking, then ran up the side and arced his body over the razor wire. They’d catch it on camera, but Matt couldn’t bring himself to care about that. Not right now.

He stopped against the inner wall of the prison around back, in the shadows where he was pretty sure none of the guards could see him, and listened. He could hear the deep base of Fisk’s heart beating in his room deep within the prison. When Matt focused—really focused—he could hear the restless creaking of the stiff mattress.

So. Fisk couldn’t sleep either.

It was only fair.

There was just…nothing left that Matt could bargain with. There was no one left that Fisk loved. His mother, Wesley, and Vanessa were all gone. Matt, though? Matt kept collecting _more_ people. And some of them could take care of themselves, sure. Stone obviously could, and Karen had her gun and even Foggy was experienced with keeping himself alive through the most unorthodox means possible.

It was different with Maggie.

It was different with Claire.

It was different with Ella and Micah and Maeva.

And if he and Karen ever…if they ever…if Fisk was still breathing and he found out that they’d had the audacity to start a family?

Stupid, stupid, selfish. Stick was right.

No, he wasn’t. He _wasn’t_. It was worth it. Wasn’t it?

What was he doing here? Fisk was untouchable. Matt uttered a worthless curse into the night and slipped away. Not back towards Karen’s apartment, no. To his own. Not for any particular reason except for the very specific reason that he needed to figure out how to say goodbye to something he’d only just let himself wish for at all.

They’d left the door to the roof unlocked. Why not? Fisk wouldn’t be stopped by a little thing like a lock. Stepping inside, Matt was caught off guard at his surprise when there was no Frank charging to meet him. Weird how empty the apartment felt.

Good thing he wasn’t planning on staying. He lingered just long enough to retrieve a pack of beer before going up onto the roof. Not the healthiest way to grieve, probably, but it was the best thing he could think of.

Actually, no. The best thing he could think of would be to crawl back to Karen and wake her up with his apologies so they could say goodbye to that future together. But Karen was far more hopeful than he was, not to mention more reckless and stubborn, and there was the terrifying possibility that she wouldn’t agree. That she’d trust them (trust _him_ ) enough to give it a shot even under Fisk’s vengeful shadow. And Matt could not handle trying to convince her otherwise, not right now. He just couldn’t.

It just hurt, deep in his chest in a place he couldn’t reach.

“God,” he whispered aloud. “I know You already know what I’m thinking, but I’ll say it anyway because…” Because keeping it to himself made it worse. “It seems pretty cruel, don’t You think? To set things up like this? I just… _why?_ ”

Murdocks didn’t stay down, and wasn’t that faith? To keep believing no matter what?

He bowed his head. “I guess I have a lot to thank You for. Karen and Foggy and Mom and…I have so many people and I guess I don’t really deserve any of them, so…thank You.”

Wasn’t that grace? Gifts undeserved?

He let out a slow breath. “And thank You that I’m…” What, not cursing God? Actually, yes. “Thank You that I still believe, I guess. Still believe that You’re good, that You care, that You’re even listening. But maybe You could just…listen closer right now.”

He breathed in the smell of the city. “I’m going to try to be okay with this even though You know I’m _not_. But I’ll try.”

It was possible, of course, that he was talking to an empty night sky. But it was also possible that he was talking to someone who apparently knew everything about his soul and loved him anyway, which meant there was no reason to not be honest. Except for pride.

It didn’t feel like he had any pride left. “Listen, I don’t expect this, all right? But…”  It felt too impossible and embarrassingly desperate to ask. “Could You just…make it work? Not now, obviously, but some day. For her,” he couldn’t help clarifying, then took a deep breath. “And—and also for me.”

There. A ridiculous prayer, but a lot of faith. Maybe it would balance out.

Whatever. He lost track of which bottle he was on and didn’t notice the footsteps behind him until they landed on the same roof. “Go away, Stone,” he mumbled.

“Matt?” Peter asked.

Whoops.

“Are you okay?” Peter edged cautiously closer. “You don’t look okay.”

Matt had the sudden impulse to swipe the bottles off the edge of the roof, but he remembered that Peter could actually see. Definitely knew the bottles were already there. Whatever. Matt’s responsible persona never fooled anyone anyway. “I’m fine. What about you?”

Peter settled beside him, close enough that Matt could feel his body heat, his elbow brushing Matt’s arm and legs swinging over the side. “Me, I’m good. Healing factor and all. Just a bit sore.”

Nodding, Matt awkwardly draped an arm over his shoulders and kind of…squeezed, or something. He let go with a sigh. “Thank you. For taking care of Foggy.”

“I would literally die for him,” Peter answered simply.

Matt choked on air.

“I _won’t_ , but I _would_.”

That did not help. If Peter didn’t have his special sense, he would’ve been killed. Of that, Matt had no doubt. Another brick of guilt settled on his chest.

Peter hesitated. “Seriously, though. This doesn’t seem exactly…normal for you.”

“You don’t actually know me.” Matt immediately wished he could take it back. “That well,” he added, like the qualifier would help.

If Peter was offended—he should be, that was a cruel thing to say after everything they’d been through together—he didn’t react. “I know this many empty bottles isn’t a good sign for anyone.”

“My choices aren’t your concern.” Matt started to get up, but Peter put a hand on his arm. Matt started to move away, but Peter’s fingers wrapped around his arm like a vice. And Peter was stronger.

“Where’re you going?” Peter asked gently.

“Nowhere, apparently.” Matt sank back down.

“Did I do something wrong when I was with Foggy?”

“You were fine,” Matt said, trying and failing to sound appreciative a second time. But he couldn’t muster the energy. Couldn’t ignore that Peter had protected Foggy far better than Matt had protected Ella, and the fact that Peter had needed to be there to protect Foggy at all was just salt in the wound.

“What happened?” Peter asked again. “Was it something about Vanessa?”

Matt shrugged. He thought of Peter growing up with his aunt, with friends, with a girlfriend, probably. And Peter was, unsurprisingly, far more social than Matt. His circle of people would just keep expanding forever, drawing more and more people into the crosshairs of his lifestyle.

Someone needed to warn him. Matt was probably the only person brave enough to do it. He wouldn’t be as harsh as Stick, though. It wasn’t like Peter couldn’t have any friends at all. Just…fewer. And at a farther distance. And with weaker emotional bonds. In both directions.

But Peter was sitting beside him, legs swinging over the edge of the roof, and Matt couldn’t see it but he knew Peter was looking at him with an unreasonable amount of concern. There was no point in feeling concern without hope that things could—should—be better.

And if Peter still had hope, Matt really didn’t want to be the one to snuff it out.

So Matt couldn’t bring himself to say any of the words he was lining up in his head. Peter, however, was still waiting for an answer. “It was my fault,” he managed at last. “I was stupid. Careless. Arrogant.”

“I don’t feel like you’re any of those things.”

Because Peter didn’t know him at all.

“You…don’t look hurt,” Peter began tentatively. “Which I guess means…someone else got hurt?”

“Exhibit Number One why people like us shouldn’t have friends.” Matt closed his eyes. “Damnit. I was trying not to say that.”

“But you think that’s true?”

Matt leaned back until he was flat on his back against the roof. “Doesn’t matter what I think.”

“I…” Peter started fiddling with one of the empty bottles. “I'm gonna tell my friend Michelle about me. Who I am.”

Matt’s eyes snapped open. “What.”

“I mean, I just…” He fiddled faster. “Mr. Nelson said I should.”

Of course he did, of _course_ Foggy would say that. Because Foggy wasn’t the one who had to deal with the fallout, with scrambling to keep everyone safe. And if someone got hurt, Foggy could at least know that it wasn’t because of him, because of his choices, because of who he was.

“Is that a bad idea?” Peter whispered.

Now Matt sat up and gripped the edge of the roof with both hands. “Please,” he said quietly. “Don’t ask me that.”

Peter made a confused sound, but before he could say anything, Matt’s phone vibrated.

“Micah, Micah, Micah.”

Matt fumbled to turn it off, but it took a bit longer than usual, and it seemed like Micah’s name just got louder and louder from the tiny speaker. By the time silence finally settled over the roof again, he could practically hear Peter putting the pieces together.

“Isn’t Micah that guy from the gym? With the little girl?”

“Let it go, Peter.”

“He’s just a civilian, right? He’s not like us.”

Matt flexed his jaw. Trying to change the subject would just draw Peter’s attention to the fact that Matt wanted the subject changed.

“Did something happen to him?”

Matt stood up, balancing unsteadily on the edge of the roof. “I told you to let it go.”

 

Karen

Was she a walking target? Yes. Was she possibly endangering the Valliers just by showing up on their doorstep? Well…yes. But she’d woken up and Matt was gone and that was the last straw. So she put on a jacket with the hood pulled up over her hair (maybe she should just dye it; although Matt would certainly object to the smell) and took the most roundabout route possible.

Besides, the Valliers were targets anyway no matter what Karen did.

The man who opened the door was wearing a deep orange sweater that added warmth to his dark brown skin despite the tired circles under his eyes. “Karen.”

Strange how different the circumstances were from their last meeting at the wedding. “Hello, Mr. Vallier. I know what happened to Ella and I, um, was hoping I could check on her.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Of course. Well, she’s sleeping right now…hasn’t been sleeping much at night. Nightmares, you know, after…” He trailed off, holding the door open. “But once Maeva gets back from shopping, we’ll wake her up so her sleep schedule maintains some normalcy. Can I get you coffee?”

“Yes, please.” She stepped past him into a hall.

There were pictures all along the walls, mostly with either two people, Micah and Maeva, or a mingling of families that was clearly some kind of reunion. But there was a smattering of pictures of Micah and Maeva with Ella there as well, sometimes squished between them, sometimes held by one of them. One ppicture positioned Ella in the foreground with her new parents watching over her from a distance. Not that anyone looking at the picture would notice Micah or Maeva past Ella’s brilliant smile.

She let him lead her down the hall into a kitchen where Micah busied himself with the coffee machine. “To clarify, Ella is doing better physically, isn’t she?”

Micah glanced over his shoulder. “You could say that, but that’s the point of the drug, isn’t it? It’s psychological.”

Meaning they couldn’t possibly know the full damage it had done, not yet. Karen leaned against the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, arms wrapped around herself. “She still has you and Maeva and her therapist, and that’s a lot more than she had before.”

He slammed the lid of the coffee maker down. “But she’s not talking about what happened.”

Karen pressed her lips together. She couldn’t really think of anything to say.

Finally, the machine beeped and he offered her a mug. “Here. Matt says it’s good, and his sense of taste is something else, so…”

Karen sipped it and tried to pretend her stomach wasn’t curling. She lowered the mug. She and Matt never agreed on coffee anyway.

Micah gave a grim smile like her rejection of the coffee was a sign of some bigger tragedy. “I’ll, uh, go get Ella.”

“Wait,” she said. “Before…before you wake her up, can you just tell me something first?”

Wariness stole into his eyes. “What do you want to know?”

The least she could do was try not to be utterly heartless. “Look, I…I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like for you, watching Ella go through that. And I’m glad she’s doing better now, but that’s…that’s not really why I came, actually.”

Half of his mouth tilted upwards in a humorless smile. “I thought so.”

That basically confirmed it, then. There was more to this story and Micah knew all about it. “What happened to Matt?”

“What did he tell you?”

She wrapped her hands tighter around the mug. “He didn’t tell me anything. Which, actually, tells me quite a bit. Like that he thinks that whatever happened was his fault…or he thinks it’s your fault and he’s trying to shield you from my wrath.” She tilted her head at him. “Or both.”

“Well, you’re mostly right.” Micah slowly sat down at the table with his mug. “And he’s entirely wrong. He thinks it’s his fault, and he doesn’t think I bear any blame. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he’s trying to shield me from you, since he’s smart enough to know that telling you what happened would not…end pleasantly for me.”

“What did you do?”

“You have to understand.” Something slipped into his voice, something small and pleading. “All I knew was that my little girl was hurt because she’s gotten caught up in this world of…of vigilantes and villains. And it’s true that she chose it because she chose to be friends with Daredevil, but…but, Karen, she’s seven and I’m…” His voice broke. “I’m her father.”

Karen’s mouth dried.

“I shouldn’t have said any of it and I’d give anything to take it back, I swear. But I can’t. I tried to apologize, but I don’t think he believed me.” He sniffed as if congested and cleared his throat.

“What did you say?”

Micah’s eyes searched hers. “That she was attacked because of him.”

Her stomach dropped. That was…that was the worst possible thing for Matt to hear. All the more so because it was true.

At least Micah had the decency to look…pained was too small a word. Wrecked. “You know him better than I do. What can I…what can I do to fix this?”

What _could_ he do?

One hand gripped his mug like it was a lifeline as he waited; he lowered his head into the other when she didn’t answer. “That’s what I thought.”

“You’ll think of something,” she said automatically, thankful that he couldn’t hear her heartbeat.

“She’s my little girl,” he mumbled into his hand.

Karen’s throat tightened. “Matt, um…he had a really good dad, growing up. I think he’ll understand.”

“Doesn’t mean he’ll forgive me.”

It wasn’t a question of forgiveness, it was a question of whether Matt would allow himself anywhere near Ella ever again. But Karen had gotten what she came for and then some, and she didn’t really want to stay here with this father so distraught because his daughter had been suffering. She pushed her chair back. “I’ll talk to him.”

Micah’s head snapped up so suddenly that she knew he hadn’t dared hope for such an offer. “You will?”

“Look,” she said, businesslike, “I can’t speak to him for you, but I’ll tell him that if you want to talk, he should agree to listen. That’s the most I can do. Listen, it’s probably best if I…don’t see Ella.” Wanting to check on her had been an excuse, and it seemed best to let her parents take care of her for now. “I should probably go.”

Micah didn’t argue, maybe because he agreed, and walked her to the door.

“Thank you for telling me,” Karen mumbled in goodbye, and promptly locked herself in her car for about half an hour, fiddling with her phone.

After she’d all but abandoned her dad to help Matt in the wake of Kyle Conway’s death, she hadn’t heard from him again until he’d shown up for the wedding. They hadn’t talked. She could send a quick text, just to check in. Just to prove that _she_ cared. Because she did, she still did.

But what would she even say?

Finally, she texted Matt, asking where he was. He said he was tracking down a lead and not to expect him back until late. Well, if he thought he was helping people, she figured she should let him do what he wanted. Still, she informed him that she was going to his—their—apartment. She didn’t want to sit in her empty one, and besides, she needed the internet if she wanted to make any progress on any cases. Which she needed to do, because if she wasn’t working, she knew her thoughts would go straight to Vermont.

True to his word, Matt didn’t come back even when evening turned into night. And she was so tired for no good reason, tired enough that she knew she had no hope of staying awake until he came home. Changing into pajamas, she grabbed one of his shirts and pulled back the covers of the bed and kind of accidentally ended up on his side. Burying her face in his shirt, she breathed in his scent until she fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's like 4am where I live. Just thought y'all should know.


	28. I Can Start Again

Peter

His bullet injury was good as new. He swung by Foggy in the hospital long enough to newly appreciate his healing factor. Aunt May wondered loudly and frequently if the healing factor was one reason he made so many stupid decisions, since there were no “natural consequences.”

There were plenty of natural consequences in his life, though. Like being kicked of the decathlon team and having to crawl back to Michelle (not literally, though) and ask for forgiveness.

“Can I talk to you?” he asked, shifting his weight where they stood by the lockers in a sea of students racing the clock.

She arched an eyebrow, scary and beautiful. “About the decathlon team you’re no longer part of, or why you think I could possibly forgive you?”

He stared wordlessly at her.

She rolled her eyes. “I forgive you, Peter. I’m just not happy about it.”

Peter wasn’t totally sure whether that was real forgiveness, but he definitely didn’t want to argue about it. “It’s not either of those things. I don’t have any excuses, but I wanna try to explain, um, what’s been going on. If I can. If you’ll let me.”

The eyebrow jumped higher. “ _If_ you can?” She hitched her backpack up. “I’m listening.”

“Not…not here.” There were too many students running around grabbing their stuff. “Can we go outside?"

She scrutinized him for a full thirty seconds, then shrugged and started walking towards the nearest exit. Peter wasted another second figuring out if she was leaving him behind or answering his question before hurrying after her.

She rounded on him as soon as they were out of earshot of the school. Probably. Peter definitely couldn’t hear anyone nearby. If he was wrong, though…if he spilled his guts and some stupid classmate was hiding in the bushes or something…

“Well?” she asked, the wind whipping her hair in her face. She ignored it.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out.

“Uh, yeah,” she said slowly. “Kinda got that message already.”

“I mean, I want you to know that what I’m about to say doesn’t…I mean, I’m not trying to pretend that I wasn’t a sucky teammate, and if I was you I’d have kicked me off the team the first time. But you didn’t, you gave me another chance, and I appreciate it.”

“Doesn’t seem like you appreciated it, though.”

“Yeah, well, okay.” Peter shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m just saying that I’m not telling you this to try to convince you to let me back on the team or anything. I’m telling you because, uh…you’re my friend.”

Folding her arms across her chest, she tipped her head to the side. He couldn’t read her expression. “I am?”

“If you wanna be. I want you to be.” Peter swallowed. Yeah, maybe Matt thought this was a bad idea. _Peter_ thought this was a bad idea. But Foggy thought it was important, and Michelle would definitely think it was important. “It’s just that we can’t be friends if we don’t really know each other, and right now you don’t really know me, and you’ll never know me unless—”

“Slow down,” she interrupted, eyes widening a bit. “You’re freaking me out.”

“You’ll never really know me unless I tell you this.” He sucked in a quick breath and pulled his mask out of his pocket. “Michelle, I’m Spiderman.”

 

Stone

Dex, Matty called him. He was lying on the floor of Stone’s apartment, handcuffed to the bedpost, with a messy line of ragged stitches etched across his side. His torn and blood-soaked shirt was draped over the bed. It created a picture that wasn’t terribly uncommon. Well, the shirt did. He didn’t usually drag captives back to his place. Any interrogations generally occurred at the scene of the battle, and any informants were typically left behind to bleed.

Leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, Stone twirled his knife idly as he gazed down at Dex’s supine form. If Dex died here in this room, there was no reason for Matty to ever know whether Stone killed him or whether Dex simply died, bleeding out from the stab wound in his side. It wasn’t as if Matty could take the high road concerning the blood loss of enemies. Matty might ask point blank, but Stone thought that if he saw the question coming, and he would, since Matty wasn’t exactly subtle, he could control his heartrate enough that nothing would give him away.

But if Matty  _did_ find out, he'd be angry. And Matty's spider-kid student would be horrified. And Matty's law partner would be disgusted. For some reason, Stone found himself caring about all of that at once.

Then Dex’s eyes fluttered open and Stone shoved those thoughts to the back of his mind. It was about time.

“Don’t try to move,” Stone warned. “Those stitches might tear out and I really don’t feel like putting them in again.”

Dex’s eyes flicked wildly around the room, but his voice was soft when he spoke. “I’m thirsty.”

“You should have thought of that before you got stabbed.” But Stone had a glass waiting with one sip’s worth of water in it. He poured it into Dex’s mouth. It was only enough for one swallow.

Dex wet his lips. “More?”

Stone walked into the kitchen to retrieve a full glass of water, but this he kept in his hand as he resumed his position in the doorway. “Perhaps after you give me a reason why I shouldn’t just kill you now that you’re conscious enough to notice.”

Dex’s stare fixed on the glass. “What do you want?”

He had no self-respect, no self-control. Stone pursed his lips. “The woman you were working with. She’s dead.”

“They all die,” he whispered.

“Do you know who her husband is?”

“He killed Julie.” And his voice was so broken over the name that Stone didn’t have to guess as to what Julie had meant to him.

“He killed Julie, and yet you worked with his wife?”

“ _She_ didn’t kill Julie,” he muttered. “She said what he did wasn’t right. She promised she’d get me out of there if I helped her, and she kept her promise.”

Yes, but he was a fugitive. “You may be freed from prison,” Stone conceded, “but you can never go back to a normal life. And right now…” He gestured to Dex’s injury. “I’m your best shot at staying alive.”

Dex seemed to search Stone’s face. Then his mouth cracked in a laugh. “Alive? _Alive?_ ” He lifted his arms, causing the chains of the handcuffs to clink together. “Like this?”

Stone shrugged. “It might not be the highest tier of accommodations, but beggars can’t be choosers, can they? Vanessa is gone, Dex, and no amount of crying will bring her back. Now you have the best chance you’ll ever have at taking down Fisk if only you stopped feeling sorry for yourself.”

“Can’t get to Fisk,” Dex mumbled. “He’s in prison.”

“That can be remedied,” Stone returned calmly. “Tell me, what do you know of him?”

“I _don’t_. I’m not working for him anymore. Never again.” Clenching his jaw, Dex pulled himself upright, bracing against the cuffs.

Was he really so easy to manipulate that, despite his fury with Fisk, Vanessa could convince him that she had nothing to do with the murder that so bothered him? Stone crouched in front of him, head tilted. “Fisk knows who you are. What makes you think he won’t find you, if we don’t stop him?”

Dex’s eyes flashed. “Let him find me. I’ll kill him.”

“No one has managed to kill Wilson Fisk before, and not for lack of trying. Why should you have any more success?”

“I just will,” Dex growled.

“He’ll be expecting you,” Stone remarked.

Dex was already shaking his head—vehemently. “He won’t care about that, not as long as he can take out whoever killed Vanessa.”

“He doesn’t know who killed Vanessa?”

“No one knows.” Dex stretched himself closer to Stone. “This is the perfect time. He’s distracted and he doesn’t have the assets, the resources, the connections, the…the _people_ to manipulate. It’s just him and…” Dex tilted his head. “The lawyer.”

Stone frowned. “What lawyer?”

“I don’t know. Vanessa said he had to get rid of Donovan because Donovan lost his license, but she used Fisk’s new lawyer to get me out. I don’t think Fisk has anyone else.” Dex paused. “Wait. That, uh…Potter? Someone named Potter?” He started nodding. “He made my suit. Vanessa said the lawyer got Potter out of prison, just like I got out.”

Stone didn’t know what he was talking about, but he filed that information away to ask Matty about later. “What about _things_ that Fisk has? Money, buildings, weapons?”

“I don’t track that stuff. I think the FBI froze his assets.”

Stone was not one to embrace overconfidence, but he was starting to wonder how, exactly, Wilson Fisk posed such a threat. Assets frozen, connections cut off, his closest companions killed. “And while you worked for him, what did he have you do?”

Dex shrugged. “I wore a Daredevil suit to discredit the real Daredevil—”

“Fisk knows who the real Daredevil is?” Stone interjected. Did Matty know?s

“A lawyer named Murdock,” Dex said flippantly, and went on before Stone could interrupt again. “And I tried to kill Karen Page.”

Stone narrowed his eyes. “Why did Fisk want Karen dead?”

“Don’t you know? Because she killed Fisk’s friend.” Dex blinked, wide-eyed. “She killed Wesley.”

 

Ella

Her feet didn’t touch the floor from her chair. Normally she liked it because it meant she could swing her legs without scuffing her toes. But she didn’t feel like swinging her legs today. She pulled them up under her, sitting crisscross-applesauce on the squishy chair in in Miss Esther’s office.

“I’m sorry I don’t have our snacks,” Miss Esther said from her own chair, peering at Ella behind glasses that were mostly dark brown but had hints of gold in the frames, drawing out something honey-colored in Miss Esther’s brown hair. “I wasn’t expecting you today.”

Ella kind of got in trouble at school. One of the boys got close behind her and she didn’t realize. When he said something loud in her ear, she spun around and punched him in the face. She hadn’t even been angry; she was just scared. But when Maeva heard what happened, she’d asked Miss Esther for an extra appointment. Again. There’d been a lot of extra appointments since Ella got sick.

Ella was getting tired of them. They weren’t fixing anything: they weren’t helping Maeva calm down and they weren’t making Micah treat her normally like he used to and they weren’t bringing Matt or Foggy back. She missed them.

“It sounds like your parents are pretty worried about you,” Miss Esther said in a tone Ella didn’t understand.

Ella cringed guiltily. “I know.”

“Why do you think they’re worried?”

“Because I was sick.” That was the obvious answer.

“Can you think of any other reasons?”

Ella looked down at her knees. “Because I’m not talking about it. But I don’t _want_ to talk about it.”

“If I ask you to tell me _why_ you don’t want to talk about it, does that count as talking about it?”

Ella thought about it. “Maybe.”

“Well, Ella, I think you’d feel better if you did talk about it. Sometimes when we don’t talk about things that are upsetting, it just makes them feel bigger and bigger, bigger than they really are.” She paused. “Well, there are some people who like to make a problem into a bigger deal than it is. Talking to those people probably won’t help. But from what I know of your parents, they’re pretty smart.”

That was definitely true.

“And they really, really love you.”

“How do you know?” Ella blurted out, because she sounded so _confident_.

Miss Esther didn’t answer immediately. “It’s hard to know, sometimes. But when people do kind things to you when you don’t deserve it and when they’re not trying to get you to do anything, that’s a pretty good sign. And I can think of a lot of things your parents have done for you, and I can’t think of any reason why they’d do all of that except that they love you.”

“Things like what?” Ella asked.

Miss Esther smiled. “I’ll tell you what I think after you tell me what you think.”

Ella didn’t really have to think about it. “They adopted me.”

Miss Esther nodded encouragingly.

“They set up a room in their house just for me. And they look at my homework even when I wish they wouldn’t and they get upset when I fight at school.”

Now Miss Esther’s lips twitched. “Why does them getting upset mean they love you?”

Ella was pretty sure Miss Esther wasn’t stupid, but she dumbed it down for her anyway. “Because they _care_ if I get in trouble.” Her old parents never cared enough to give her rules. They never tried to stop her from doing something that would cause _her_ problems, they only tried to stop her from breaking something in the house or annoying them when they were watching TV.

“It sounds like you have a pretty good list,” Miss Esther commented.

It was. And there was more stuff, too. Like how Maeva always stayed in the room when Ella was playing, or how Micah asked her so many questions about everything just because he wanted to hear her tell him what she thought of the world. He bought her ice cream and listened to her stories and he and Maeva didn’t get mad at all when she woke them up with her nightmares. Not the one from when she was sick, but the ones that came every night since.

Speaking of nightmares. “When I was sick, I saw stuff that everyone says wasn’t real. But it felt real.” She hesitated. “I saw Micah. He talked to me.”

Miss Esther waited patiently.

“And I just…I just…I don’t want to tell him about it because…what if the nightmare was _right?_ ”

“What happened in the nightmare?”

She shook her head.

Leaning forward, Miss Esther rested her elbows on her knees. “All right, maybe you can tell me this instead. Did whatever happened in the dream fit with what you know about Micah? Did it fit with how he’s always treated you?”

Ella hesitated. She shook her head again.

Miss Esther nodded thoughtfully. “If I tried to tell you what Micah was thinking right now, that’d be pretty silly of me, right?”

“You can’t read minds, can you?” Ella asked, just to be sure.

She smiled. “Thankfully, no.”

Reading minds sounded pretty useful to Ella, so she didn’t know why Miss Esther was thankful she couldn’t. But maybe Miss Esther never felt like she needed to read someone’s minds to be safe, or to be certain that they meant what they said when they promised something.

“Well, if it’s pretty silly of me to try to read Micah’s mind, do you think it makes sense when you try to do it?”

“I’m _not_ ,” Ella said, upset.

“If you’re afraid that real-Micah might really think whatever nightmare-Micah thought, even though real-Micah doesn’t act like nightmare-Micah at all, it sounds to me like you’re trying to read real-Micah’s mind.”

Ella frowned.

She softened her voice. “Ask him, Ella.”

 

Micah

She was quiet all through the car ride back from her therapy appointment and by this point, he’d given up trying to force a conversation with her. She was quiet when they got home, too.

“Where’s Maeva?” she asked as they stepped inside. It was the first unsolicited thing she’d said to him all day.

And she wasn’t calling Maeva _Mom_ anymore, just like she wasn’t calling him _Dad_. Which meant she wasn’t only mad at him, or uncertain about only him, even though he and not Maeva had been the one to hold her down while devil’s hell tore into her brain. This was a much bigger problem here and he was terrified that he didn’t know how to fix it.

“At a meeting.” Micah put his keys on the counter. “I guess we have the place to ourselves, huh? What do you wanna do?”

“I dunno.” She was staring at the floor. But she didn’t immediately escape upstairs or into another room; instead, she scuffed at the wooden floor with her shoe.

It looked almost like she was gathering courage for something. He bit his tongue and waited.

Finally, she glanced up at him. “Can we talk?”

It took a vast amount of effort to keep his sudden anticipation from seeping into his voice. “Of course we can. Should we go sit down somewhere?”

“I need to tell you what I saw,” she burst out, like if she kept quiet one second longer she might never tell him anything.

He wanted to reach out, to hold her. But her hands started twisting together. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her more and…and reaching for her might do just that. Instead, he took a step backwards, widening the space between them, and carefully sat down on the hardwood floor.

“You…you…” There were tears in her eyes, but her voice barely shook. She stood with her shoulders back, chin up, like she was daring him to feel sorry for her. “I saw Matt killing my dad.”

Micah tried very hard to make sure his face didn’t reveal the shock and sadness he still felt at hearing his little girl say those words so matter-of-factly.

“Except Matt wouldn’t stop killing him because my dad wouldn’t stop trying to hurt him, and I just wanted them to stop.” Her brow furrowed. “I just wanted them to stop.”

“Did they?” Micah asked cautiously.

She shook her head. “But then you…you were there, and you were yelling at Matt.”

She heard that? She remembered? Or was she imagining a different scene, something created by the drug?

“And then you looked at me and said I was just as bad as what Matt was doing. You said…” Now, finally, her eyes dropped away. “You said you and Maeva didn’t want me.”

Again, he wanted to reach for her. Again, he held himself back, hoping his restraint would mean something to her. “I do want you. We both do.”

Her chin jutted up more defiantly. “Kyle said I’m too annoying for anyone but him to want me.”

With great effort, Micah kept all signs of anger off his face. He hoped. “Ella, buttercup, I will _always_ want you.”

“Then why would you say that in the nightmare?”

“I _didn’t_ say that,” he said desperately. “It wasn’t real—I’d _never_ say that.”

Her voice hardened. “But I thought you did.”

There was a silent question there. _Why, Micah? Why would I think that if it’s not true?_

Maybe a little bit of science would help her understand. He cleared his throat. “I want you to know how that sickness works,” he began. “Someone made it up on purpose because they wanted people to be scared. There’s a part of your brain that houses fear, and that’s the part of the brain that the nightmares deal with. So the nightmares can show you what you’re scared of.”

Her eyebrows pinched together.

“But the nightmares _can’t_ show you what’s real.” He took a deep breath. “It wasn’t me.”

She didn’t look convinced.

Had he really failed so spectacularly at showing her who he was, what he really felt towards her? He lowered his voice, an apology just for her. “I’m sorry you’re scared that I won’t want you. I’m sorry for anything I’ve done that’s made you think that. I’m not perfect and my love for you isn’t perfect. That means that I might do things that hurt you, or things that make you think I don’t love you. But I _do_. And I always will.” Now he slowly reached out to brush his hand up her arm. “And I’ll spend my whole life trying to prove that.”

She bit her lip.

He thought fast. “You know I love your mom, right? Maeva?”

“You love her a lot,” Ella said without having to think about it at all.

“But sometimes I do things that aren’t very loving. Or _I_ think it’s loving, but she doesn’t. Sometimes she might think that I don’t really love her at all. But there’s a very special thing she does to remind herself that I _do_ love her. Do you know what that is?”

“She lets you take her on dates?”

He smiled. “Yes, but that’s not what I’m talking about. She steps back and thinks of all the history we have together. She remembers all the times I’ve shown her how much I love her, and she remembers all the promises I’ve made. When she’s trying to figure out if I mean it when I say I love her, she thinks of what she _knows_ of me.”

Ella tilted her head contemplatively.

“You, buttercup, don’t know me quite as well as Mom knows me. You and I are still getting to know each other, you see? But I want you to know me well enough that you can trust me.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I don’t.”

He wanted to punch Kyle for making her think, in a time like this, that she needed to apologize for anything. “I don’t blame you. We haven’t had as much time together, but we’re working on it. Together.” He breathed in again, slowly, and breathed out. “For now, though, I’m asking you to go off what little you do know of me, and take the rest on faith. Can you do that? Can you try?”

“I…I want to, but…” Shame slipped into her voice. “I don’t know _how_.”

Who would ever have taught her how to trust? Who ever rewarded her trust? “Trust is a feeling, but trust is also choice. Some people don’t deserve your trust and I don’t want you to _ever_ try to trust someone just because they want you to trust them. But if you think someone is worth trusting, you have to choose to trust them even if you don’t feel like it.”

Her round eyes studied him. “But what does that look like?”

He could think of a million possible answers—trust means being vulnerable with someone, trust means giving up control to someone, trust means having enough confidence in someone that their failure will cause disappointment—but he could also imagine how any of those ideas might hurt her later on if she put them into practice with the wrong person. He glanced up at the ceiling, wondering if every parent felt the heavy weight of such small moments. “I think you might have to find that out for yourself.”

How many times had she tried to trust Elizabeth, only to be met with indifference? How many times had she tried to trust to Kyle, only for him to respond with violence?

For a moment, she didn’t respond. Thinking, maybe. Then she gave a thoughtful hum and took a small step forward, then another, then another. He held very still while she drew closer, not moving even when she curled herself into his lap, tucking her head under his chin. She was so small, and she knew from experience just how breakable she was. Tense, alert for the slightest hint of panic, he didn’t dare put his arms around her.

But she snuggled in closer. “Hold me, Daddy,” she whispered.

So he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added one more chapter to this fic (guys, I was so close to estimating correctly, but alas)...and then I think it's pretty clear that this'll need one more installment to deal with the inevitable fallout of what happened here, so don't panic that not everything is resolved! I promise I won't leave this story hanging!


	29. Epilogue

Matt

Apparently Karen loved him enough to go to the Valliers for his sake. To get facts, she’d said, but he was fully convinced that she’d also gone prepared to do battle. He was fervently thankful that it hadn’t come to that.

Instead, she’d woken up the next morning with new sadness in her voice, and she’d fiddled with her phone the entire time that she recounted the conversation with Micah.

“You okay?” he’d asked.

“You’re asking _me?_ ”

It came out a little sharp, a little defensive, so he knew she wasn’t. But he backed off, and when she tried to make him promise to listen if Micah reached out, he kept his reluctance to himself and agreed.

He slightly regretted that when Micah did indeed reach out two days later, but Karen wanted this, so he answered when his phone rang out Micah’s name, and he agreed when Micah asked if he could buy him dinner, and he found himself at that Korean restaurant all over again that weekend.

They didn’t really talk until the food was ordered. Well, Matt tried valiantly. He resisted the temptation to ask about Ella once he established that she was, physically, fully recovered—no point, there was no point in asking more about her—but he _could_ be pretty good at small talk if he wanted. It came more naturally for Foggy, but both of them were capable of setting clients at ease through casual conversation.

Micah, however, was not a client and nothing about this conversation was casual.

“Thank you for saving her,” Micah said abruptly, instead of answering whatever trite question Matt had asked.

So it began. Matt just had to listen to the undeserved thanks and apologies and whatever else until Micah thought he’d done his part in mending things between them, and then Matt could move on.

“When her parents were trying to keep her with them, instead of letting her stay at Everett’s where she would be cared for,” Micah continued.

Oh, so they were starting at the beginning. Great.

“When she was kidnapped and you brought her back,” he went on. He kept his voice down, but there weren’t many other guests. "When you took care of her so she could tell the judge her story…which is the only reason Maeva and I were able to adopt her at all.”

“She’s brave,” Matt said quietly, despite himself. “Always has been.”

“And you brought her back safely when she ran away, and she made sure I knew how important it was to you that, uh…” Micah fiddled with a napkin. “That we took care of her.”

“You don’t have to thank me for that.”

With a sudden sigh, Micah sat back in his chair, waiting and waiting like he was studying Matt. “So that’s it?” he asked at last.

Matt tensed. “That’s what?”

“When we met for the first time at Everett’s, you told me it was important for people to be constant in her life. You wanted me to agree to let you keep seeing her even after she was no longer one of your cases.”

She was never just one of his cases.

“So why do I get the feeling now that you’ve changed your mind about letting her have you in her life?”

“It’s not that simple,” Matt said flatly.

Micah scoffed. “You’ve barely even asked about her, and I know it’s not because you don’t _care_. What, then? You’re trying to insulate yourself so you can pull away for her own good? That’s what’s going on here, isn’t it?”

Matt glared at his plate. “It’s not that simple.”

Pushing his own uneaten food aside, Micah sat forward, leaning against the table. “All right, maybe Ella wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you weren’t part of her life, but that cat’s out of the bag now and you pulling away all of a sudden won’t undo that. It won’t do anything but break her heart. Is that what you want?”

Matt’s head snapped up. “Don’t you get it? Vanessa’s _dead_. Fisk lost _everything_. There’s nothing—nothing to hold him back anymore.”

“I understand,” Micah said calmly.

“You don’t. You really, really don’t.” Matt took a quick, deep breath. He didn’t want to say this part, but Micah of all people needed to hear it. “The first time I was trying to stop Fisk, he killed an old woman just to get my attention. And the Russians he was working with, they kidnapped a boy and used him as bait. Again, to get to me.” He clenched his fist under the table. “What are the odds Vanessa didn’t tell him about Ella?”

Micah sat very still. “I know that, but you leaving her behind won’t fix anything. So what do you think we should do about it?”

Change their names, move to France. Except he couldn’t keep them safe there. What, then? Let him move in with them? Fine, that might handle an assassin, but Fisk was creative. Matt couldn’t fight off poisoned gas or bombs or whatever else Fisk might think to use.

There was another option. Ella was only a target because of Matt, so if Matt just took himself out of the game, she’d be safe. He’d do it in a heartbeat (maybe) except that he couldn’t do anything to help Karen and Foggy if he was dead.

Micah was still waiting. Patiently.

Matt could feel the desperation, the apology, written on his face. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

“That’s all right,” Micah said immediately. “You don’t have to come up with the solution on your own.”

Matt’s upper lip curled in disgust. With the whole situation, but mostly with himself.

After a moment, Micah reached for his glass. “She’s been asking for you, you know. Just in case you were doubting whether, after all this, she still wants you around.” He shrugged. “She chose you, and we chose her, so whatever happens…happens.”

There was no way Micah would be saying that if he really thought about who Fisk was, what he’d done. But Matt was quickly realizing that any attempt to argue Micah into changing his mind was hopeless.

“Matt, do you remember when I asked you to train Ella in self-defense?”

Matt forced his brain to understand the question. “Yes?”

“Do you remember what you asked me in return?”

He’d asked if Micah trusted him.

“I still trust you,” Micah said quietly.

Any other day hearing those words would probably soothe countless doubts, but today they just made everything worse. Letting out a strangled laugh, Matt lowered his head into his hands. “It’d be one thing if I didn’t know better, you know?”

“Know better?”

“Yeah, this guy, he _told_ me. He told me exactly what’d happen if I let people like you in.” He closed his eyes, wanting to laugh, wanting to cry, wanting to flip the table over. Couldn’t believe Stick was right, after all this time.

“Who told you?” Micah asked.

“No one,” Matt groaned.

Micah hesitated. Matt could hear his breathing, but nothing else. A family of three walked past towards the exit and Micah waited until the door closed behind them before speaking. “Ella told me how you met. Do you remember?”

Oh, he remembered. She’d said his eyes were pretty, and after he’d met her sniveling mother, he’d sat on the floor with her while she touched the sad colors on his face.

“She was drawn to you right away,” Micah said softly. “She trusted you with her story before she even trusted her teachers, or the people at Everett’s. You were the first person she told about what her dad did to her.”

“Foggy was there too.”

“Yes, and she told me that she trusted Foggy because he was with you.”

Matt shifted his weight in his seat. “Well, don’t tell Foggy. He thought he charmed her all on his own.”

Micah offered a polite chuckle before returning to seriousness. “Obviously, she related to the bruising on your face from your, ah, nightly activities…but I suspect that it went deeper.”

Matt became motionless, uncomfortable under the feeling that he was being x-rayed.

“Now, I know that you were worried, when we asked you to train her, about how that might go.” Micah sounded like he was picking his words with great care. “Given what you said about not being trained formally, that made sense to me at the time. I was thinking about, you know, liability concerns and the like. And then I saw how careful you were with her. But then, your own methods are so brutal. And I couldn’t help wondering here you learned that.”

“You couldn’t have thought I’d actually teach her everything I know,” Matt pointed out dubiously.

“But _your_ teacher never even thought to introduce you to target pads. From my research, those are actually pretty standard. Did he at least use gloves?”

Never.

Micah gave a tiny nod. “My conclusion, then, is that your training was significantly harsher than anything you’ve offered Ella. In fact, I can’t help but think it must have been very close to what the criminals you encounter experience every night. Which…” He broke off. “Am I right?”

A thousand possible answers flashed through Matt’s mind, all of which were on their face pathetically defensive or admitted far too much. Yet as the silence stretched out, he realized that a lack of response was an answer in and of itself. He opened his mouth but still couldn’t commit to words.

“You don’t have to tell me. I realize I threw away most of the trust you’ve put in me.”

Matt pressed his lips together and offered a small shake of his head. That wasn’t true, not quite.

“But if I…if I can help somehow…”

“It was a long time ago.”

Now Micah nodded slowly and waited.

Matt swallowed. “You’re right. Ella and I both…” He started over. “It was my teacher. His methods were too extreme. I know that.”

Micah’s voice was hushed and the rest of the restaurant seemed to quiet around them. “How old were you?”

“…Ten.”

Another nod, but Micah didn’t say anything to direct him, didn’t ask any questions or do anything to soften the weight of the conversation.

Might as well get this over with, then. Still, Matt gave himself a second or two more to brace himself. “It was about a year after I lost my dad. I was at the, uh, home. So, before you ask, no one was overseeing my training and what my teacher was doing. The only person who could’ve stopped it was me. And I didn’t.”

“Ah. So when you say there was no oversight, the staff at the home…?”

“Nuns.”

“They didn’t know what was going on?”

He felt heat rise in his face and was thankful for his glasses. “We hid it pretty well.”

“We?”

“My teacher and I.”

“You helped hide it?”

Matt clenched his jaw. “I…did what he told me.”

“Because you were ten.”

Matt didn’t answer. The technicalities didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact that all of this was out in the open now, and he felt equally exposed.

“Well, I…” Micah stopped and started again. “I’ll be honest. I don’t have anything like that in my background, so maybe it’s out of place for me to say this. But…I want you to know how much respect I have for you, that you would be able to use your training for good despite—”

“No,” Matt interrupted softly. He was trying to help people, yes, but that was it. Besides, what about the times when it wasn’t about helping someone, when he just enjoyed the feeling of unleashing his skill on someone else?

When Matt didn’t say anything more, Micah posed a new question. “Is your teacher still around?”

“He died last year. It’s fine.”

“It’s fine,” Micah echoed carefully. “You know, if Ella tried to tell me that she was fine with her dad’s death, I wouldn’t—”

“It’s not the same,” Matt cut in.

“But if she _did_ try to tell me she was fine, I wouldn’t believe her.”

Matt didn’t need to justify himself to Micah, nor did he owe Micah any explanation for why, exactly, he really was mostly fine. But…as uncomfortable as this whole conversation made him, there was an unfamiliar warmth to it as well that Matt didn’t want to chill. “It’s different. He never…he never tried to pretend to be my dad. So, looking back, I think it’s…simpler, for me, than for Ella.” Matt’s voice got stronger as he kept talking. “He didn’t come back into my life until just a couple years ago, and by that point I’d met Foggy and started practicing law. I have plenty of things in my life that aren’t connected to him at all. So it’s easier to just move on.”

“Good,” Micah said swiftly.

“And, you know…” He ducked his head slightly, rubbing at his forehead with the back of his wrist. “Ella helped. And…” Micah deserved to hear this. “You helped too.”

Micah sat up straighter in surprise. “How?”

Did he not realize? “Because…” Now Matt had to figure out how to explain it. “Because…because my dad was great. Not perfect, but great. It’s easy to see the difference between him and St—my teacher. And then there’s you. I see how you treat her, and it helps. Knowing that Ella has you, that she’ll never…” She’d never have to go through what he went through.

Micah was quiet a moment. “Thank you. Maeva and I are trying our best, and we knew from the beginning that things would be complicated, but, well, it’s been a bit more than we expected.”

“I’m sorry.” Such a weak apology.

“Listen, Matt.” Micah’s voice hardened. “When you were a kid, it sounds like you didn’t have people in your life looking out for you. You didn’t have a family to retreat to. And that person who trained you? Of course he wouldn’t want you to have other people in your life, because someone else might’ve seen what he was doing to you and stopped it.”

Even now, even now that he knew better, it was hard to hear the training referred to as something that was done _to_ him, not something he’d participated in.

“But even if it’s true that Ella wouldn’t have been in danger if she weren’t connected to you, I’d say it’s too late to worry about that. You and Ella _are_ connected, and Wilson Fisk wouldn’t believe it if you tried to pull away from her now. So I’d…” Micah cleared his throat. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

Matt concentrated, listening for the slightest sign that Micah was just saying what he thought he was supposed to say, maybe saying something to make Matt feel better after everything he’d revealed.

“And it’s not just because I think she’s safer with you than without you,” Micah went on, “although that’s true.” He paused. “And it’s not just that she thinks you walk on water, although that’s also true. It’s that—and this goes for Maeva and me as well as for Ella—at this point, you’re a friend.” He cleared his throat again. “Actually, after everything that's happened, I’d say you’re more like family.”

Matt blinked in confusion.

There was no lie in his heartbeat.

 

Matt’s own words haunted him all through patrol that night. He couldn’t quite believe he’d told Micah so much, and he still kind of wished he could take everything back before Micah realized how messed up his childhood had been, how messed up Matt still probably was. But it was too late. The whole, sad story was out now.

Micah’s words also haunted him. The family comment would’ve been shocking enough on its own, but Matt was also stuck on everything said about Stick. He knew the tricks of…of certain people, like the abusive boyfriends who methodically isolated their victims until no one was left to point out that something might be horribly wrong. That was basically what Micah was talking about, wasn’t it? But Matt had never in his life assumed that Stick’s warnings about endangering other people might be motivated by something else, something like that.

If Stick had been trying to manipulate him…it worked.

What would Karen think, if she knew Micah’s theory? Would she be surprised?

It was late when he landed on his own roof. He’d been staying out later and later each night, because going back home to let himself sleep also meant dropping his guard. Meant if Foggy called, or Micah, he wouldn’t be ready. Karen wasn’t thrilled, but she always fell asleep before he got back, so she didn’t know how long he stayed out, and he made sure not to check the time when he got back. When she asked him how long he’d been out, he admitted that he didn’t know.

She saw through it, obviously. But maybe she realized how badly he needed this because she didn’t push. Or maybe she was glad he was out there too, in case something _did_ happen to Foggy or Ella or anyone else.

After all, if Peter hadn’t been with Foggy, Foggy would be dead. A bullet to the heart, or maybe Dex would’ve gotten more creative. Either way, Foggy would be dead because Matt had chosen to protect Ella—and he’d failed at even doing that much.

At least Stone had Dex. That was more than Matt had expected, and far more than Matt had hoped for. Dex was still alive, which was a small miracle, and he was secured out of the way. Matt wasn’t sure how long Stone would put up with babysitting him, but Stone admitted that for now, at least, Dex made things interesting.

Dex was a minor concern, though. As for Fisk, his apparent inaction only put Matt more on edge. Maybe the fact that Fisk hadn’t moved against them yet was because the prison was actually doing its job for once, or maybe Fisk was plotting something that would leave them five steps behind. Sure, Fisk didn’t have access to all his wealth, nor to his political connections, nor to a small army of dirty cops. But Matt was sure that Fisk still had some cops who were loyal to him—or who would be loyal, if Fisk just threatened them the right way.

In the meantime, Stone said Fisk had a new lawyer. Matt did some digging; questions about how much Donovan knew about Fisk’s criminal activity while staying at the Presidential Hotel finally prompted the New York Bar Association to suspend Donovan’s license. But Donovan’s replacement came from a well-reputed firm that had no business associating itself with someone like Fisk.

It was…disconcerting. And no matter how Matt scoured the city, he couldn’t figure out what Fisk’s game was.

Shoving those thoughts away for now, he unlocked the door on the roof and slowly descended the stairs, already looking forward to lying down beside Karen. But as he stepped into the living room, he paused, taking one moment to stop and sense his home.

 _Their_ home.

Because it wasn’t just him anymore, or even just him and Frank. There was also Karen, traces of her everywhere. Her shoes and bag by the door, her jacket slung over the couch because she always forgot to hang it up, an unnecessary amount of chocolate squirreled away throughout the kitchen, not to mention the inky smell of her favorite brand of pen. She kept losing them, so he kept buying her more until every room had at least two hidden somewhere.

But though he loved all those scents that were distinctly hers, his favorite was something else. Pulling off the mask and letting it hang loosely in his hand, he made his way silently into the bedroom.

 _Their_ bedroom.

Now he lifted his head and breathed in the room that used to belong to him alone but was now equally claimed by her. Their scents tangled together until he could barely tell where his ended and hers began. Even when he’d roomed with Foggy, there’d always been some things that were truly private, that belonged to one or the other of them but not to both.

Here? Every single thing was wrapped up in two scents at once.

 _Theirs_.

And it was dangerous, sure. He still brought destruction to the best things in his life, but Karen was…she was by far the best thing in his life, and yet she was still here. Astoundingly resilient. His best friend and partner. And maybe it was stupid of her to stay so close to him despite the risks, but at least no one could argue that she didn’t know exactly what she’d gotten into when she chose him. No matter how terrifying the thought of something happening to her, he couldn’t deny her that choice. And whatever might happen to her, he had to trust that she believed that it was somehow worth it.

He tilted his head. Satisfied with the truth the scents were telling him, he focused on another of his senses, listening for every sound of hers. She was asleep, only occasionally rustling the silk as she moved. Her breathing was slow and even, and her heartbeat was—

Matt froze.

Her heartbeat was as strong and steady as ever, but there was something else. Lighter, faster. He edged closer to the bed, frowning at the rapid tapping, almost incessant. Whatever it was, it wasn’t disturbing her. He leaned over her, head tipped to the side to better trace the sound to its source.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh, God, no.

The mask slipped from his fingers and he dropped to his knees beside her, blinking as the tiny new heartbeat filled up his world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear readers, I can't express my thanks to you enough. This whole story was shaped by plot points that you suggested, and this form of collaborative storytelling is unlike anything I've ever done. Whether your comments are suggesting things you want to see, analyzing a scene, or just telling me what you felt while reading a chapter, it all means so much. I can't wait to see you for at least one more Ella story! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Work and chapter titles from "Known" by Tauren Wells (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xckDgX8xNfg)


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